Fan et al.
SCHEME 1. P r op osed In ter m ed ia te
them more useful synthetic intermediates that fully
deserve a prominent place in the arsenal of the organic
chemist. In the course of our studies on the synthesis of
aziridines and epoxides and their applications in organic
synthesis,9 we developed a novel phosphine-mediated
ring-opening reaction of various aziridines and epoxides
with a wide range of nucleophiles. The mechanism
studies showed that the P-ylide would be a possible
intermediate. We describe here the investigations on the
novel ylide formation procedure from aziridines or ep-
oxides under neutral and metal-free conditions and its
use in the formation of dienes, as well as important
aspects of the reaction mechanism.
In our previous publications,9i-k we found that organo-
phosphine10 could attack aziridines and epoxides to form
the corresponding betaine intermediate A1.10b We sup-
posed that an ylide intermediate A2 might be formed
from the betaine A1 after an inter- or intra-hydrogen
shift reaction (Scheme 1).10a,11 If it is possible, an umpol-
ung would occur so that the electrophilic carbon atom of
aziridines or epoxides would become a nucleophilic
center.
To prove the existence of the ylide intermediate A2,
benzaldehyde was introduced into the mixture of aziri-
dine 1a with tributylphosphine in CH3CN. After 48 h at
reflux, aziridine 1a disappeared but no corresponding
expected allylic amine was obtained. To our surprise, an
unexpected conjugated diene compound was isolated in
43% yield even in the absence of any base (eq 1). After
considerable experimentation in various reaction condi-
tions, we found that t-BuOH was the optimal solvent,
giving the highest yield (75%). It is noted that the
reaction could also proceed in water at 40 °C (48% yield)
or in solvent-free conditions at 100 °C (53% yield). When
PPh3 was used instead of PBu3, the yield of the reaction
1a with benzaldehyde decreased to 55%.
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To explore the generality of this transformation, a
variety of substrates and carbonyl compounds were
examined. As shown in Table 1, not only the aziridines
but also the epoxides (entries 5, 8, and 10), both easily
derived from acyclic or cyclic precursors, were suitable
substrates. All carbonyl compounds we tested, aromatic
and aliphatic, aldehydes and ketones, worked well in
these diene formation reactions. The yields of dienes from
the aziridines or epoxides derived from acyclic precursors
are higher than those from other substrates derived from
cyclic precursors. The reactions gave predominantly
conjugated dienes with (E,E)- or (E)-configuration. The
stereochemistry of products was determined by 1H NMR.
In our reactions, the conjugated dienes were formed
in a neutral and metal-free conditions. The yields in some
reactions were not high but acceptable compared with
those in other methods. It is worth noting that, because
most of the epoxides or aziridines in Table could be
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