N. Tsuchiya, Y. Nakashima, G. Hirata et al.
Tetrahedron Letters 69 (2021) 152952
Table 3
a
Substrate scope for the reductive ATRC reaction.
Scheme 4. Derivatization of 2a.
Finally, we carried out a number of control experiments to
understand the reaction mechanism involved in this process. Inter-
estingly, we found that the reductive ATRC product was not
directly generated from the reaction of 1a in the presence of the
Hantzsch ester (Scheme 5A). This result indicated that no pri-
mary-alkyl radical species was generated from 2a under the reac-
tion conditions examined herein, and that an intermediate radical
was directly captured by the reductant. To confirm the involve-
ment of a single-electron transfer process, the reaction of 1a was
carried out in the presence of 1,4-dinitrobenzene (Scheme 5B).
No trace of product 2a was obtained, and instead, substrate 1a
was recovered in 55% yield (Other products were not able to iden-
tified), along with the 1,4-dinitrobenzene reagent (>99% yield, <1%
conversion). This reaction was also carried out in the presence of
the Hantzsch ester (Scheme 5C), and a similar result was obtained
a
A mixture of
a-bromoamide 1 (0.50 mmol), PTH (0.5 mol%), Hantzch ester
(
1.5 equiv), and NMP (2.0 mL), was stirred at room temperature with 365 nm LEDs
for 24 h under N
2
.
boxamides possessing halogen atoms (1c, 1d, 1r, and 1q) or elec-
tron donating substituents (1e–1j) on their aryl groups were exam-
ined. Overall, yields ranging from 70 to 78% were obtained,
although the presence of Cl- and methyl-substituted aryl groups
1e, 1f, and 1q) gave low yields. Similar to the case of the ATRA pro-
cess, -bromocarboxamides bearing N-benzyl and tosyl groups (1k
and 1l) smoothly reacted under the optimized conditions. We also
examined -bromocarboxamides possessing various lengths of
alkyl chains. More specifically, when the n-ethyl-substituted 1m
was used, 3m was produced in a low 34% yield. In contrast, n-pro-
pyl-substituted 1n gave the corresponding product in 86% yield.
Subsequently, to produce reductive ATRC products possessing vic-
(
a
a
(
i.e., 90% 1a, no product). But 1,4-dinitrobenzene was reduced to
the corresponding amine, and Hantzsch ester was converted to
the pyridine derivatives. These results supported the fact that the
single-electron reduction of 1a could proceed via a PC process. To
verify the effect of photoirradiation, the ATRC reaction of 1a was
monitored over time (Fig. 2). The reaction was found to be partic-
ularly efficient, with 56% of product 2a forming within 1 h. Impor-
tantly, when the LED light was switched off, the reaction stopped,
and when it was switched back on again, the reaction restarted.
This observation strongly suggests that PC plays a critical role in
this ATRC reaction, and that no radical chain transfer is involved.
inal quaternary carbon centers, we tested an a-bromocarboxamide
possessing a sterically-congested N-methallyl group (1o), and the
expected product 3o was obtained in 46% yield. When the reaction
was carried out using 1p, which possesses a sec-alkyl moiety at the
carbonyl
a-position, lactam 3p was obtained in 66% yield with a
high stereoselectivity. Interestingly, the reactivity of 2-bromoallyl
substituted 6 differed from those of substrate 1. More specifically,
this substrate underwent the ATRC reaction, but the subsequent
HBr elimination was rapid, resulting in the formation of 7 in 77%
yield (Scheme 3).
We then moved on to demonstrate that 2a can undergo three
different chemical transformations, as outlined in Scheme 4. More
specifically, the reaction of 2a in the presence of morpholine
resulted in the formation of aminated product 8 in 88% yield,
while the elimination reaction of 2a with DBU gave the corre-
sponding olefin 7 in 88% yield. Furthermore, the reaction of 2a
with arylboronic acid in the presence of a Ni catalyst resulted
in a primary-alkylative cross-coupling reaction to afford 9 in
4
4% yield.
Scheme 3. Reaction of 6.
Scheme 5. Control experiments.
3