Electrochemical Haloform Reaction Efficient Transformation of Methyl Ketones to Carboxylates
J. Jpn. Oil Chem. Soc. Vol. 45, No. 2 (1996) 147 ORIGINAL Electrochemical Haloform Reaction Efficient Transformation of Methyl Ketones to Carboxylates Yoshiharu MATSUBARA * 1, Kazuo FUJIMOTO * 1, Hirofumi MAEKAWA * 2 and Ikuzo NISHIGUCHI * 2 * 1 Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Kinki University (3-4-1 Kowakae, Higashi-Osaka-shi, Osaka-fu, •§ 577) * 2 Osaka Municipal Technical Research Institute (6-50, 1-Chome, Morinomiya, Jyoto-ku, Osaka-shi, •§ 536) Abstract : Electrolysis of aliphatic, aromatic, and ƒ¿,ƒÀ-unsaturated methyl ketones in an anhydrous alcohol containing sodium or lithium bromide using an undivided cell equipped with carbon rods as the anode and the cathode brought about electrochemical Haloform reaction to give the corresponding car- boxylates in good to excellent yields. The reaction was found to be mediated with bromonium ion, gen- erated by anodic oxidation of bromide ion. Absence of bromoform in the product mixtures of this reac- tion may be attributed to ready reduction of bromoform to highly volatile compounds, which may pro- vide high simplicity of reaction procedure. Facile and efficient introduction of carboalkoxyl groups to aromatic rings and olefinic bonds was ac- complished in two steps through initial Friedel-Crafts acetylation followed by the present electrochemi- cal method. Key words : mediator, methyl ketones, electrolysis, bromonium ion, carboxylates 1 Introduction Haloform reaction has been well known as a method for transformation of methyl ketones to the corresponding carboxylic acids using an aqueous hypohalite solution1) . Synthetic utili- ty of this reaction, however, has been considerably limited owing to use of large amounts of a hazardous halogen and a strong base, troublesome procedure such as separation and pu- rification of the desired carboxylic acid from the resulting haloform, and unsatisfactory yield.
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