2
L. ZHANG ET AL.
Scheme 1. Synthesis methods for 1,3,4-oxadiazoles and 1,3,4-thiadiazoles.
cyclization of hydrazones. Taking 1,3,4-oxadiazoles for example, coupling of hydrazines
with carboxylic acids or aryl chlorides has been reported to generate diacylhydrazines,
which are converted to the desired 1,3,4-oxadiazoles by cyclization in the presence of
[
6]
[7]
various dehydrated reagents including Brønsted acids,
phosphorus oxychloride,
[
8]
[9]
[10]
polyphosphate acid (PPA), Burgess’s reagent, H SO /SiO under MW condition
2
4
2
and so on. However, there are one or more limitations to the cyclization strategies pre-
sented above, like harsh reaction conditions, extended reaction times and low yields in
[
11]
the most of the cases.
Moreover, the acidic cyclization conditions caused by the large
amount of strong acids or POCl are generally not compatible with diverse functional-
3
ity. Alternatively, many improvements to the reaction have been made in recent years.
[
12]
Gong
and coworkers presented a flexible and elegant protocol for the regioselective
synthesis of 1,3,4-oxadiazole and 1,3,4-thiadiazole via reagent-based cyclization of thio-
semicarbazide intermediate. On the other hand, hydrazones generated from condensa-
tion of an aldehyde and hydrazines have also been proposed as a superior method to
afford 1,3,4-oxadiazoles after oxidative cyclization. Typically, the oxidation is carried out
[
13]
using stoichiometric amounts of oxidizing agents such as KMnO ,
Fe(NO ) /
3 3
4
[
14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
TEMPO,
ceric ammonium nitrate
or TBHP/I2.
In addition, Dabiri
reported an improved method to form 1,3,4-oxadiazoles from acyl hydrazides
and
[
18]
Bunce
and orthoesters in the presence of KAl(SO ) ꢁ 12 H O or NH Cl, respectively. Similarly,
4
2
2
4
the requirement of an expensive catalyst or commercially unavailable starting material
and the addition of hazardous or explosive solvents/regents also make these methods
unattractive for large scale application. Thus, we became interested in the development
of efficient synthesis of 1,3,4-oxadiazoles and 1,3,4-thiadiazoles utilizing a single dehy-
dration reagent for both coupling and cyclodehydration events.
Titanium tetrachloride (TiCl ) is a typical Lewis acid, and its strong affinity toward
4
oxygenated organic compounds has been widely used in various functional group trans-
formations. Besides, titanium tetrachloride is also a mild and powerful dehydrating
[
19]
agent which is usually used in the synthesis of numerous organic molecules.
Recently, our group successfully applied TiCl in the convenient synthesis of furan and
4
[
20]
benzofuran derivatives.
Herein in this paper, we would like to describe a facile and
general method for the preparation of 1,3,4-oxadiazoles and 1,3,4-thiadiazoles employ-
ing TiCl as the catalyst, which has not been disclosed in the literature (Scheme 1).
4
Results and discussion
In our preliminary study, the cyclization of benzohydrazide with N,N-dimethylaceta-
mide (DMA) was carried out as a model reaction. To our delight, when TiCl (2 equiv.)
4
was employed, the reaction afforded the desired product (2a) in good isolated yield
without any other additives or solvents (Table 1, entry 2). However, replacement of