Angewandte
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(entries 9 and 10), respectively. Similarly ethynylmagnesium
bromide reacts with 1a, affording 2 f in a 77 and a 72% yield
depending on the eutectic mixture employed (entries 11 and
12). Confronting the same ketone with EtMgCl, where b-
hydride transfer (reduction) is more plausible, led exclusively
to addition product 2b in 64 and 73% yields (entries 3 and 4
using 1ChCl/2Gly and 1ChCl/2H2O), although when benzo-
phenone was employed, secondary alcohol 3 was the major
product (entries 7 and 8, Table 2), while ethyl adduct 2d was
obtained in modest yields, similar to those previously
reported for the same reaction using dry THF as solvent at
08C.[4c]
Figure 2. Molecular structure of 4. Displacement ellipsoids are drawn
at the 50% probability level. Hydrogen atoms have been omitted for
clarity.
Theoretical and experimental studies monitoring the
addition reactions of carbonyl compounds by Grignard
reagents, using neat water as a solvent, have shown that
while for allyl Grignard reagents additions take place at
a comparable rate to those of the competing hydrolysis
processes,[10] alkyl analogs, such as BuMgCl, are much more
kinetically retarded (addition reaction is up to 105 times
slower),[13] and therefore protonation occurs preferentially,
yielding only trace amounts of addition products. This
behavior contrasts sharply with the reactions mentioned
above with EtMgCl and 1a where in both eutectic mixtures
(1ChCl/2Gly and 1ChCl/2H2O), the tertiary alcohol 2b is the
major product (entries 3 and 4 Table 2), hinting at some type
of kinetic activation of the Grignard reagent may be occurring
using the DESs. Furthermore in this case the conversions
observed for 2b are greater than that found when 1a is
reacted at À788C in dry THF under strictly inert atmosphere
techniques (45%). Germane to this work, Song has recently
shown that catalytic amounts of ammonium salt NBu4Cl in
THF solutions of Grignard reagents can greatly enhance the
chemoselectivity of addition reactions, minimizing formation
of enolization and reduction products.[14] The authors pro-
posed that substoichiometric amounts of the salt can shift the
position of the Schlenk equilibrium of Grignard reagents to
form dinuclear R2Mg·MgX2 species which would favor
addition. Since a main component in the eutectic mixtures
employed in this work is an ammonium salt, a related
activation effect can be operative. To explore this possibility
more, we reacted choline chloride (ChCl) with various
amounts of the Grignard reagent Me3SiCH2MgCl in THF
solvent. However, because of the poor solubility of this
ammonium salt in this organic solvent, no reaction was
observed. In contrast, the addition of one equivalent of
Grignard to the slightly more soluble NBu4Cl afforded
a solution that deposited crystals of magnesiate [{NBu4}+-
{(THF)MgCl2(CH2SiMe3)}À] (4) in a 87% yield.
of highly reactive magnesiate species as chemoselective
reagents for additions to ketones has been previously
described, but as far as we are aware, this involves the
in situ formation of a bimetallic reagent, by co-complexation
of the Grignard reagent with an organolithium.[5] These
lithium magnesiates exhibit greater kinetic reactivities and
unique selectivity profiles, unmatched by conventional mag-
nesium reagents.[15] Although the formation of a similar
compound to 4 using ammonium salt ChCl present in the
DESs employed in this work could not be demonstrated, the
possibility of the participation of more nucleophilic magnesi-
ate species in the addition reactions described in Tables 1 and
2 cannot be disregarded. This would imply that ChCl may
have a double role in these processes, as a component of the
DES mixture employed but also as part of organometallic
alkylating reagent, being a halide source.
To probe the scope of DESs in terms of the nature of the
polar organometallic reagent employed we then studied the
reactivity of ketones 1a–c with a series of organolithium
reagents (Table 3). The large increase in the polarity of the
À
metal carbon bonds in these commodity reagents when
compared with organomagnesium compounds, generally
imposes the use of much lower temperatures in order to
control their selectivity.[1] Thus, for example the addition of
BuLi to acetophenone should be performed at À788C in THF,
and even so the tertiary alcohol is obtained in a 62% yield
along with 7% yield of the unwanted aldol condensation
product.[5] Contrastingly, under the previously optimized
reaction conditions used for Grignard reagents (ChCl-based
eutectic mixtures as solvent, at room temperature in air;
Table 3), BuLi can be added instantaneously to 2-methoxy-
acetophenone (1a) to give tertiary alcohol 2g in impressive
yields (60–82%, entries 1, 2, and 3) without forming any other
by-products. We believe this makes our study unique in that it
is the first to report the successful coexistence of organo-
lithium reagents and green solvents within the same solution.
Again and as previously demonstrated for Grignard reagents,
the addition reaction of BuLi is orders of magnitude faster
than its protonation by water, ethylene glycol or glycerol
present in the DES. Showing the general applicability of this
approach, chemoselective butylation was also observed for
the exclusively aliphatic ketone 1c (entries 6 and 7 in Table 3)
in either Gly- or water-containing eutectic mixtures. Diverg-
ing from the low conversions observed in the reactions of
EtMgCl with benzophenone (1b) (entries 7 and 8 in Table 2),
X-ray crystallographic studies established that the molec-
ular structure of 4 (Figure 2) is surprisingly a monomer,
comprising a well-defined magnesiate anion, made up of a Mg
atom which binds terminally to an alkyl group, two chlorines,
and a THF molecule, and a tetrabutylamonium counterion.
1H DOSY NMR studies on solutions of 4 in [D8]THF
confirmed that this structure is retained. These results suggest
that these activating effects of the ammonium salts in THF
solutions may be best rationalized in terms of the formation of
an anionic species which should have an enhanced nucleo-
philic power over that of a neutral Grignard reagent. The use
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 1 – 6
ꢀ 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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