Temperature and Substituent Effects on Regioselectivity in the Insertion of Arylcarbene into Alcohols

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/ja00375a037

Photolysis of aryldiazomethanes in methanol, ethanol, and 2-propanol gave OH insertion products along with small amounts of CH insertion products at ambient temperature.However, the CH insertion products increased significantly at the expense of the ether as the temperature was lowered.The attempted sensitized decomposition of the diazomethane did not lead to an increase in the CH insertion products presumably because of a rapid singlet-triplet equilibrium.The key intermediate leading to the CH insertion is suggested to be ground-state triplet arylcarbene, based on the accumulated spectroscopic as well as chemical evidence for the intervention of the triplet arylcarbene in the low-temperature photolysis of aryldiazomethanes.Substituents on the phenyl ring also have an appreciable effect on the insertion selectivity.At room temperature, the OH/CH insertion selectivity increased with the electron-donating ability of the substituents.This is interpreted in terms of the substituent effect on the transition state of OH insertion, where there is a deficiency of electrons at the benzylic carbon atom, rather than on the stability of singlet carbene.At low temperature, both electron-donating and -withdrawing substituents facilitate OH insertion, indicating the change in substituents induces a concomitant change in the insertion mechanism, presumably due to decreasing nucleophilicity of carbene with increasing electron-withdrawing ability as well as decreasing proton-donor activity of alcohol with decreasing temperature.This may also reflect the effect of the substituent on the singlet-triplet energy gap.