Catalyzed O-Acylation of Alcohols and Phenols Under Solvent-Free Conditions
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Open Journal of Synthesis Theory and Applications, 2012, 1, 31-35 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojsta.2012.13006 Published Online October 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ojsta) Highly Efficient Cobalt (II) Catalyzed O-Acylation of Alcohols and Phenols under Solvent-Free Conditions Shafeek A. R. Mulla*, Suleman M. Inamdar, Mohsinkhan Y. Pathan, Santosh S. Chavan Chemical Engineering and Process Development Division, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India Email: *[email protected] Received August 6, 2012; revised September 12, 2012; accepted September 28, 2012 ABSTRACT Solvent free, highly efficient method has been developed using ecofriendly, heterogeneous reusable cobalt chloride catalyst at ambient reaction conditions for the O-acylation of various alcohols and phenols with acetyl chloride in ex- cellent yield in a short reaction time. The catalyst is recycled several times without loss of catalytic activity. Keywords: Acetylation, Alcohol, Phenol, Acetyl Chloride, Cobalt (II) Chloride 1. Introduction non-recoverable besides the formation of toxic side pro- duct and poor yield for the desired product in presence of An esterification is a key and fundamental step to protect organic solvent. hydroxyl group during functional transformation in vari- Therefore, considering all the above facts, still there is ous organic synthesis [1-3]. However, protection and de- a need and demand to develop a solvent free, greener protection of hydroxyl functional group of alcohols and and an economical protocol and catalysts for protection phenols being not only prime importance in pharmaceu- of hydroxyl of alcohols and phenols by esterification. tical industries but also in the polymers, cosmetics, per- Therefore, herein we wish to report a solvent-free, a fumes, plasticizers to achieve excellent yield to potential cheap, mild, rapid and efficient protocol for the O-acyla- targeted synthetic compounds. Owing the importance of tion of alcohols and phenols with acetyl chloride over protection of hydroxyl functional group during the multi- cobalt (II) chloride catalyst at room temperature (Schemes steps organic synthesis, the various methods for the pro- 1). tection of hydroxyl group of alcohols and phenols using varieties of reagent and catalysts such as HgCl2 [4], 1 mol% CoCl 2 Montmorillonite [5], TMS-Cl [6], TaCl5-SiO2 [7], ZnCl2 R-OH R-OAc [8], ZnO [9-10], Ru-catalyst [11], Mg(ClO4) [12], SmI2 AcCl (1.2 equiv) room temp [13], CeCl3 [14], perchlorates [15], P2O5/Al2O3 [16], - HCl CoCl2 [17-18], ZrCl4 [19], NH2SO3H [20], solid sup- ported HBF4-SiO2 [21], lipase enzyme [22], Al(OTf)3 R= Ph, Allyl, Benzyl, Naphthyl, Aliphatic, etc. [23], In(OTf)3 [24], Bi(OTf)3 [25], polymer supported Gd(OTf)3 [26], Ce(OTf)3 [27], Ag(OTf)3 [28], molecular Scheme 1. Cobalt (II) chloride catalyzed O-acylation of alco- Iodine [29], nitro benzeneboronic acid [30], NiCl2 [31], hols and phenols. La(NO3).6H2O [32], DCC [33], Co(II)salen-complex [34], Melamine trisulfonic acid (MTSA) [35], ionic liq- uid [36-39], ZnAl2O4 [40], have been reported, however, 2. Experimental Section the most common acetylating reagents used are acetyl All chemicals and reagents were procured from suppliers chloride, acetic acid, acetic anhydride or any other protic and used without further purification. The products were acid [41]. analyzed by a 5765 NUCON Gas Chromatograph with However, all the above methods are badly suffer from FID detector using stainless steel column 4 m length x one/or other limitations and drawbacks such as drastic 1/8 inch O.D. x 2 mm I.D., packed with 10% SE-30 on reaction conditions, long reaction time, high temperature, Chromosorb-W with mesh size 80-100 and also charac- use of moisture sensitive, toxic, expensive reagents and terized using 1H NMR, 13C NMR spectra. The NMR catalysts. In addition these limitations, the catalysts are spectrums of product were obtained using Bruker AC- *Corresponding author. 200 MHz spectrometer with TMS as the internal stan- Copyright © 2012 SciRes. OJSTA 32 S. A. R. MULLA ET AL. dard. Table 1. Influence of acylating agents on various substratea. (%) Yieldb 2.1 General Experimental Procedure for Time Entry Substrate Product O-Acetylation of Alcohols and Phenols (s) AcCl Ac2OAcOH The alcohol or phenol (5 mmol) in acetyl chloride (6 OH OAc mmol) was taken in 50 ml round bottom flask. To this 20 99 NR NR 1 reaction mixture 1mol% cobalt (II) chloride catalyst was 3600 - NR NR added and then mixture was stirred at room temperature OH OAc under solvent free conditions. The influence of acylating 15 99 35 NR 2 agents was investigated using phenol, 4-methyl phenol 3600 - 39 NR and chloroethanol as substrate. The completion of the Me Me reactions was monitored by GC. After the completion of 10 99 67 NR reaction, the mixture was diluted with ethyl acetate (25 3 OH OAc Cl Cl 3600 - 99 12 ml) and the catalyst was recovered by filtration. The fil- trate was washed with NaHCO3 and then with water, aReaction conditions: The substrate (5 mmol), acetylating agent (6 mmol), 1 b dried over anhydrous Na2SO4. The dry filtrate was con- mol% CoCl2, room temperature; GC yield. NR: No Reaction. centrated under vacuum to obtain the pure product. Table 2. Cobalt (II) chloride catalyzed acetylation of phenols 3. Results and Discussion with acetyl chloridea. Acylation of phenol (5 mmol) was studied with acetyl Yieldb Entry Substrate (R) Product Time (s) chloride (6 mmol) in presence of 1 mol% cobalt (II) chlo- (%) ride catalyst under solvent free condition at room tem- OH OAc perature to afford phenyl acetate in 99% yield in 20 sec- 1 20 99 onds. However, the acetylation reaction of phenol was inefficient in absence of cobalt (II) chloride. After the OH OAc successful acetylation of phenol with excellent yield to 2 20 99 phenyl ester, the influence of acylating agents was invest tigated using phenol, 4-methyl phenol and chloroethanol OH OAc as substrate and results are summarized in Table 1. The 3 25 89 influence of the acylating agent’s study (entries 1 - 3, Me Me Table 1) reveals that reactivity of acetyl chloride is ex OH OAc tremely higher than that of acetic anhydride and acetic 4 15 99 acid over the cobalt (II) chloride catalyst under solvent Me Me free conditions at room temperature. OH OAc The results on influence of acylating agents promoted 5 20 99 Me us to evaluate the scope of this methodology for different Me OAc types of primary, secondary, benzylic, allylic, cyclic al- OH cohols and phenols using acetyl chloride as acylating 6 20 99 agent (Scheme 1). Me Me A number of substituted phenols and alcohols such as OH OAc 4-tert-butyl phenol, 2- tert-butyl, 4-methyl phenol, p- 7 40 99 cresol, o-cresol, m-cresol, 2-hydroxy benzaldehyde, 1- CHO CHO naphthol and 2-naphthol (entries 2 - 9, Table 2) and bu- OH OAc tanol; hexanol; heptanol; 1, 8-octandiol; chloro ethanol; 8 15 99 Lauryl alcohol and 2-butanol (entries 1 - 7, Table 3), secondary alcohols (entries 8 - 9, Table 3), allylic alco- hol (entry 10, Table 3) and benzylic alcohols (entry 11 - OH OAc 12, Table 3) were acetylated respectively, in good to 9 20 99 excellent yield without any difficulties. The results (Tables 2 and 3) on the acetylation of alco a Reaction conditions: The substrate (5 mmol), CH3COCl (6 mmol/OH hols and phenols reveal that the good to excellent yield b c group), 1 mol% CoCl2, room temperature; GC yield; without CoCl2 cata- up to 99% was achieved in very short reaction time lyst. Copyright © 2012 SciRes. OJSTA S. A. R. MULLA ET AL. 33 Table 3. Cobalt (II) chloride catalyzed acetylation of alco- OH O a 1 mol% Rec.CoCl2 hols with acetyl chloride . AcCl (1.2 equiv) O Time Yieldb room temp Entry Substrate (R) Product (s) (%) - HCl 1 OH OAc 10 95 Scheme 2. Recyclability study of cobalt (II) chloride catalyst for acetylation of phenols with acetyl chloride. 2 10 99 OH OAc Table 4. Recyclability study of cobalt (II) chloride for acety- 3 OH OAc 15 98 lation of phenol with acetyl chloridea. OH OAc 4 OH AcO 15 99 OH OAc No. of Run Time (s) Yield (%) 5 Cl Cl 10 99 Run 1 (Fresh catalyst) 20 99 6 15 99 OH OAc Run 2 20 99 Me Me Run 3 25 98 7 10 98 Run 4 25 99 OH OAc Me Me Run 5 30 99 OH OAc a Reaction conditions: phenol (5 mmol) CH3COCl (6 mmol) 1 mol% of CoCl2 8 10 99 at room temperature Catalyst recovery = 97% ± 2%; bGC yield. O OH OH OAc OAc 9 35 92 CoCl CH COCl OH OAc 2 3 HCl + RO CH3 OH OAc (1) 10 10 82 (5) (4) OH OAc 11 50 75 H + R O Cl CH3 Cl CH3 OH OAc :O.. _::O 12 35 98 .. CoCl2 CoCl2 (2) (3) .. a Reaction conditions: The substrate (5 mmol), CH3COCl (6 mmol/OH group), ROH b 1mol % CoCl2, room temperature; GC yield. R= Ph, Allyl, Benzyl, Naphthyl, Aliphatic, etc. (10 - 50 seconds). Further, the result indicates that the Scheme 3. The proposed catalytic cycle for the acetylation cobalt (II) chloride catalyst shows remarkably high cata- reaction over CoCl2 catalyst. lytic activity and efficiency not only with primary alco- hols and phenols but also with sterically hindered secon- condition at room temperature is not clear so far, how- dary, benzylic, allylic, cyclic alcohols and phenols under ever, the results obtained in the present study shed some mild and solvent free reaction conditions at room tem- light on these aspects. perature. The catalytic activity and/ or recyclability study The carbonyl group of acetyl chloride is known to co- of 1 mol% cobalt (II) chloride catalyst was performed for ordinating on Lewis acid sites of the CoCl2 catalyst sur- the acetylation of phenol (Scheme 2, Table 4).