Activation of Diboron Reagents with Brønsted Bases and Alcohols
FULL PAPER
D). The replacement of a methyl by an ethyl group in the
ester moiety (Table 3, entries D and E) results only in 1 kcal
molÀ1 difference, in accordance with the similar reactivities
of different esters of crotonic acid observed experimentally
(Table 2, entries 2, 3). The next step was to study the influ-
ence of the nature of the alcohol additive (Table 1, entries 5,
9–11). The dramatic decrease in activity when tBuOH is
used instead of MeOH can be explained by three facts:
1) tBuOH is less acidic than MeOH, and thus generation of
the alkoxide by the base would be less favored (initial step
in the suggested reaction pathway), 2) the alkoxide–diboron
adduct is thermodynamically more stable for MeOÀ
(À0.5 kcalmolÀ1 with respect to the energy of the B2pin2 and
MeOÀ before complexation) than for the tBuOÀ (3.4 kcal
molÀ1 above the energy of the free reagents), 3) in the case
of acrylaldehyde as model substrate, the relative energy for
the TS with B2pin2·tBuOÀ as nucleophile is 4 kcalmolÀ1
higher than with the B2pin2·MeOÀ. Finally, we were able to
elucidate the interaction of the diboron reagent with the
methoxide anion by means of NMR spectroscopy (Table 4)
theoretical methods. A plausible mechanism has been pro-
posed in which the role of the base is crucial to provide the
activated diboron reagent. It was concluded that, upon inter-
action with alcohols, it generates alkoxides, which interact
with the diboron reagent to form a nucleophilic Lewis acid–
base adduct. The activated diboron reagent is prone to
attack activated olefins. The nucleophilic attack forms the
borylated carbanionic intermediate I, which will be proton-
ated in the protic medium, forming the b-borated product
and generating another methoxide anion. The rate of forma-
tion of the carbanionic intermediate, as well as its thermody-
namic stability, is mainly controlled by the functional group
of the activated olefin. We believe that the sole use of base/
alcohol as catalytic system is an important achievement in
the emerging area of organocatalytic boron conjugate addi-
tion reactions. We are currently developing the asymmetric
version of this methodology, and also studying, in depth, the
related chiral phosphine/base/alcohol catalyst system, which
provides enhanced activity and asymmetric induction.
Experimental Section
Table 4. Experimental and computed 11B NMR chemical shifts in solu-
tion (THF) for different boron species.[a]
General procedure for b-boration of a,b-unsaturated carbonyl com-
pounds and other activated olefins: The base 2,8,9-trimethyl-2,5,8,9-
Species
Exptl 11B NMR
Calcd 11B NMR
B2pin2
30.5
30.5
tetraaza-1-phosphabicyclo
ACHTUNGERTN(NUNG pinacolato)diboron (140 mg, 0.55 mmol) were transferred to an oven-
ACHTUNGTRENUN[NG 3.3.3]undecane (8.4 mg, 0.076 mmol) and bis-
B2pin2·NHC[7,11]
1.8
(sp3)
36.2
(sp2)
À0.6
(sp3)
31.8
(sp2)
G
R
G
ACHTUNGTRENNUNG
dried Schlenk tube under argon. THF (2 mL) was added. The mixture
was stirred for 10 min at RT to dissolve the diboron reagent completely.
The substrate (0.5 mmol) and MeOH (100 mL, 2.5 mmol) were added,
and the reaction mixture was stirred for 24 h at 708C in an oil bath. The
reaction mixture was cooled to RT. An aliquot of 0.2 mL was taken from
the solution and diluted with CH2Cl2 (1 mL), then analyzed by using GC/
GC-MS to determine conversion and confirm selectivity. After the GC
analysis, the same aliquot was gently concentrated on a rotary evaporator
at RT and analyzed by using 1H NMR spectroscopy to confirm the con-
version and chemoselectivity previously observed by gas chromatography.
In each case, both methods indicated that a single product was formed
from the substrate. The differences in conversions obtained with the two
methods are within 5% in most cases.
(pin)BOtBu[12]
21.5
18.7
[B2pin2·MeO][HV]
5.9
35.0
(sp2)
5.4
35.9
(sp2)
28.3
(sp2)
A
E
A
ACHTUNGTRENNUNG
B2pin2·MeOÀ
À17.9
R
ACHTUNGTRENNUNG
[a] 11B NMR shifts are given in ppm. Boron trifluoride etherate was
taken as a reference.
and ESI-MS studies, as well as by calculations (see Support-
ing Information for details). Importantly, the calculated
values for 11B chemical shifts perfectly reproduce the mea-
sured values for B2pin2, for the B2pin2–N-heterocyclic car-
bene adduct reported by Hoped et al.,[12] and for the
Calculations: Molecular structures for all species were optimized without
constraints by using DFT-based methods as implemented in the Amster-
dam Density Functional (ADF v2009.01) package. A triple-z plus polari-
zation Slater basis set was used on all atoms. Relativistic corrections
were introduced by scalar-relativistic zero-order regular approximation
(ZORA).[15] For geometry optimizations we used the local VWN correla-
tion potential[16] together with the Becke exchange[17] and the Perdew cor-
relation[18,19] (BP86) generalized gradient corrections. Stationary points in
the potential energy hypersurface were characterized either as minima or
transition states by means of harmonic vibrational frequency calculations.
Standard corrections to Gibbs free energy at 298 K were evaluated, too.
Solvent effects were introduced by using the continuous solvent model
COSMO.[20] NMR chemical shifts were computed at the same level of
theory by doing single-point calculations with all-electron basis sets.
Single-point energy at the hybrid B3LYP21 and metahybrid M06[22] levels
were performed self-consistently (see the Supporting Information).
ACHTUNGTRENNUNG
(pin)BOtBu species reported by Marder et al.[13] The
B2pin2·MeOÀ adduct with the protonated Verkade base
(HV) as a cation ([HV][B2pin2·MeO]) is observed as a
broad signal at 5.9 ppm, and a very broad signal at around
35.0 ppm, which precisely coincides with the computed
values for the sp3 boron atom (5.4 ppm) and sp2 boron
(35.9 ppm). The broadening of the signals are probably due
to the fast inter- and intramolecular exchanges.[14] Further-
more, the molecular peak of the B2pin2·MeOÀ adduct, m/z=
285.1, was detected in an ESI-MS experiment.
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
The role of the base in the organocatalytic boron conjugate
addition reaction has been determined by experimental and
We thank MICINN (CTQ2010-16226/BQU, CTQ2008-06549-CO2-02/
BQU, and Consolider-Ingenio 2010 CSD2006-0003) and AGAUR
Chem. Eur. J. 2012, 18, 1121 – 1126
ꢄ 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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