Angewandte
Communications
Chemie
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C C Bond Cleavage
Splitting a Substrate into Three Parts: Gold-Catalyzed Nitrogenation of
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Alkynes by C C and C C Bond Cleavage
Chong Qin+, Yijin Su+, Tao Shen, Xiaodong Shi,* and Ning Jiao*
Dedicated to Professor Xuelong Hou on the occasion of his 60th birthday
Abstract: A gold-catalyzed nitrogenation of alkynes for the
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synthesis of carbamides and amino tetrazoles through C C
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and C C bond cleavages is described. A diverse set of
functionalized carbamide and amino tetrazole derivatives
were selectively constructed under mild conditions. The
chemoselectivity can be easily switched by the selection of the
acid additives. The reaction is characterized by its broad
substrate scope, direct construction of high value products, easy
operation under air, and mild conditions at room temperature.
This chemistry provides a way to transform alkynes by splitting
the substrate into three parts.
A
s very common, readily available, and reactive functional
molecules, alkynes have been widely used in organic trans-
formations.[1] Transition-metal-catalyzed unstrained C C
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bond cleavage represents an attractive but challenging
strategy in organic synthesis to discover new transforma-
tions.[2] In the past decades, significant progress has been
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Scheme 1. The transformation of alkynes through C C bond cleavage.
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made on the direct transformation of alkynes through C C
triple bond cleavage, including the alkyne metathesis,[3]
oxidation,[4] and nitrogenation reactions.[5] In these cases,
the original alkyne structure was split and located in two kinds
of products (Scheme 1a). Recently, the groups of Echavar-
ren[6] and Jiao[7] have successfully realized the direct trans-
formation of alkynes to tetrazoles[6] and amides[7] through
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carbamides and amino tetrazoles through both C C and
C C bond cleavages (Scheme 1c). In this chemistry: 1) The
original alkyne structure was split into three parts and
reassembled in one product molecule. To our knowledge,
this is the first example of the direct transformation of alkynes
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C C single bond cleavage, in which the alkyne structure was
split into two parts but, interestingly, located in one product
molecule (Scheme 1b).
through both C C single bond and C C triple bond cleavage
in one step; 2) The chemoselectivity can be easily controlled
by the reaction conditions. Therefore, the desired carbamides
and amino tetrazoles could be easily switched by the selection
of the acid additives; 3) The reaction is characterized by the
transformation of alkynes, the direct construction of high
value products, easy operation under air, and mild conditions
at room temperature.
Encouraged by these improvements, the discovery of new
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alkyne transformations through C C bond cleavage is still
attractive but very challenging. Herein, we describe a Au-
catalyzed nitrogenation of alkynes for the synthesis of
[*] C. Qin,[+] T. Shen, Prof. N. Jiao
Gold catalysts have proven to be one of the most effective
catalysts for alkyne activation.[8,9] During the Au-catalyzed
amide synthesis,[7] trace amount of carbamides and amino
tetrazoles were detected in some cases. We therefore started
the investigation by probing the nitrogenation of phenyl-1-
hexyne (1a) with TMSN3 in the presence of Au- and Ag-
catalysts (Table 1). Interestingly, we found that the reaction
was significantly influenced by which acid was used. HOAc
and TFA (trifluoroacetic acid) failed to facilitate the trans-
formation. To our delight, in the presence of PTSA
(p-toluenesulfonic acid, pKa = À2.8 in water), the desired
multiple nitrogenation and hydration products carbamide 2a
and amino tetrazole 3a were obtained in yields of 21% and
13%, respectively (entry 1). The efficiency and selectivity of
this protocol were improved by changing PTSA to MSA
State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University
Xue Yuan Rd. 38, Beijing 100191 (China)
Prof. N. Jiao
State Key Laboratory of Organometallic Chemistry
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shanghai 200032 (China)
E-mail: jiaoning@pku.edu.cn
Dr. Y. Su,[+] Prof. X. Shi
Department of Chemistry, University of South Florida
Tampa, FL 33620 (USA)
E-mail: xmshi@usf.edu
[+] These authors contributed equally to this work.
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
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ꢀ 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55, 350 –354