Carbon-heteroatom bond formation from copper(III) is commonly invoked as a key step in catalytic reactions, including the century-old Ullmann reactions. Well-defined examples of such reactions have never been observed. Here, we demonstrate that a well-defined Cu(III)-aryl species reacts with a variety nitrogen nucleophiles to undergo facile carbon-nitrogen bond formation.
Recent studies have highlighted the ability of Cu(II) to catalyze the aerobic oxidative functionalization of C-H bonds; however, very little is known about the mechanisms of these reactions. Here, we describe the Cu(II)-catalyzed C-H methoxylation and amidation of a macrocylic arene substrate with O(2) as the stoichiometric oxidant. Kinetic and in situ spectroscopic studies demonstrate the involvement of three different oxidation states of Cu in the catalytic mechanism, including an aryl-Cu(III) intermediate. These observations establish a novel mechanistic pathway that has implications for numerous other Cu-catalyzed aerobic oxidation reactions.
A well-defined macrocyclic aryl–Cu(III) complex (2) reacts readily with a variety of oxygen nucleophiles, including carboxylic acids, phenols and alcohols, under mild conditions to form the corresponding aryl esters, biaryl ethers and alkyl aryl ethers. The relationship between these reactions and catalytic C-O coupling methods is demonstrated by the reaction of the macrocyclic aryl–Br species with acetic acid and p-fluorophenol in the presence of 10 mol% Cu(I). An aryl-Cu(III)-Br species 2(Br) was observed as an intermediate in the catalytic reaction. Investigation of the stoichiometric C-O bond-forming reactions revealed nucleophile-dependent changes in the mechanism. The reaction of 2 with carboxylic acids revealed a positive correlation between the log(k(obs)) and the pK(a) of the nucleophile (less-acidic nucleophiles react more rapidly), whereas a negative correlation was observed with most phenols (more-acidic phenols react more rapidly). The latter trend resembles previous observations with nitrogen nucleophiles. With carboxylic acids and acidic phenols, UV-visible spectroscopic data support the formation of a ground-state adduct between 2 and the oxygen nucleophile. Collectively, kinetic and spectroscopic data support a unified mechanism for aryl-O coupling from the Cu(III) complex, consisting of nucleophile coordination to the Cu(III) center, deprotonation of the coordinated nucleophile, and C-O (or C-N) reductive elimination from Cu(III).
We describe two new greener alkene bromination reactions that offer enhanced laboratory safety and convey important green chemistry concepts, in addition to illustrating the chemistry of alkenes. The two alternative reactions, one involving pyridinium tribromide and a second using hydrogen peroxide and hydrobromic acid, are compared to the traditional bromination of stilbene through the application of green metrics, including atom economy, percent experimental atom economy, E factor, and effective mass yield. The use of these metrics to guide experiment evaluation and optimization in the teaching lab environment is examined. The development of these new experiments provides (i) an ideal case study for demonstrating the process of on-going evaluation and modification of experiments that leads toward more environmentally benign educational materials for the undergraduate organic teaching laboratory and (ii) a concrete example useful for introducing the practical use of metrics to students as a part of their laboratory experience. A green debromination procedure is also described that allows for simple and economical recycling of the starting material.
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