Acidities of Glycine Schiff Bases and Alkylation of Their Conjugate Bases

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/ja00233a031

Equilibrium acidities in Me2SO are reported for six ketimines of the type Ph2C=NCH(R)CO2Et and five aldimines, ArCH=NCH(R)CO2Et.Changing R in the ketimine from H to Ph increased the pK_a by 2.2 units.This surprising acidity decrease for Ph substitution points to a substantial increase in steric effect, as do the increases in pK_a of 3.8 and 4.2 units observed for the replacement of hydrogen by Me and PhCH2, respectively.Phase-transfer alkylation of the Ph2C=NCH2CO2Et ketimine gave over 90 percent of monoalkylate whereas, under similar conditions, the aldimine 4-ClC6H4CH=NCH2CO2Et gave a mixture of mono- and dialkylate.The difference is that the pK_a of the monoalkylated aldimine is essentially the same as that of the parent, which leads to rapid equilibration with the parent anion and consequent dialkylation.The rates of alkylation in Me2SO of these parent and monoalkylated anions did not differ greatly, showing that the relative pK_HAs of the parent acid and its monoalkyl derivative, rather tham the relative rates of the mono- and dialkylation reactions, is the principal factor that determines the extent of the competition between monoalkylation and dialkylation.