International Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2011, 1, 119-124 doi:10.4236/ijoc.2011.13018 Published Online September 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ijoc) Phase Transfer Catalysis of Henry and Darzens Reactions Layla Mhamdi1, Hafedh Bohli1, Younes Moussaoui1,2, Ridha ben Salem1* 1Physical Organic Chemistry Laboratory, Science Faculty of Sfax, Sfax University, Sfax, Tunisia 2Science Faculty of Gafsa, Gafsa University, Zarroug City, Gafsa, Tunisia E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Received April 28, 2011; revised June 23, 2011; accepted August 16, 2011 Abstract We describe in this work the influence of the addition of phase transfer catalyst in heterogeneous medium liquid/liquid on the output of the reactions of Darzens and Henry. It proves that the reaction of Darzens is favoured in the presence of low base such as K2CO3 and Et3N. Phase transfer catalysis is an efficient activa- tion method in Darzens and Henry reactions. Thus, the Ethylene Diammonium Diacetate (EDD) has a com- parable catalytic activity has that of quaternary ammonium salts in the reaction of Darzens. Keywords: Darzens, Henry, Phase Transfer Catalysis, Mechanism 1. Introduction group [28] introduced a phase transfer catalyst derived from cinchonine to synthetize Darzens products. In the The formation of a carbon-carbon bond is the fundamen- same way, Ku et al. [29] reported the asymmetric syn- tal reaction in organic synthesis [1-5]. To this respect, thesis of trans-α,β-epoxysulfones by the catalytic phase- Henry [6-9] and Darzens [10-12] reactions can be con- transfer Darzens reaction of chloromethyl phenyl sulfone sidered as excellent tools to give access to multifunc- with various aromatic aldehydes in the presence of the tional compounds [13,14]. The Darzens reaction gives cinchona alkaloid-derived chiral phase-transfer catalysts. α,β-epoxy carbonyl compounds, whereas the Henry reac- In the goal to continue our works on the activation by tion leads to nitroaldols. the phase transfer catalysis of organic reactions such as: The Henry reaction [15] consists of the addition of a Wittig reaction [30], Baylis-Hillman reaction [31,32], nitronate nucleophile on the double bond of a carbonyl Michael reaction [32,33], Knoevenagel reaction [34], compound. It proceeds usually at room temperature in Heck reaction [35,36]. In this work, we study the activa- the presence of a base to afford a β-nitroalcool. The pre- tion of Henry and Darzens reactions by means of phase ferred bases are alcali hydroxides [16], carbonates [17], transfer catalysis (PTC). bicarbonates [18] and alkali oxides. The reaction, how- ever, is often carried out in protic media such as metha- 2. Experimental nol or, even, water [19]. Henry adducts are very useful in organic synthesis as precursors for pharmaceutical and 2.1. Henry Reaction biological purposes [20,21]. In order to improve the effi- ciency of the reaction, new catalytic or non-catalytic Procedure A: A solution of nitroalkane (7.5 mmol), methods have been divised such as alumina [22], potas- solvent (15 mL), and base (5 mmol) was introduced in a sium fluoride on alumina as support [23], lanthanides 25 mL flask equipped with a magnetic stirrer. 5 mmol of [24], high pressures [25] and microwaves [26]. In the carbonyl compound was added. The mixture was stirred same way, the Darzens reaction permits the synthesis of during 24 h at ambient temperature. The organic phase adducts simultaneously involving the formation of a was extracted with diethyl ether. When the carbonyl carbon-carbon bond and a carbon-oxygen bond [12]. compound was an aldehyde, the organic phase was wash- Several authors have tried to improve the enantioselec- ed with a saturated solution of anhydrous sodium hydro- tivity and the yields. Arai et al. [27] showed that the en- genosulfite to remove the unreacted aldehyde. The or- antioselectivity of the Darzens reaction can be excellent ganic phase was dried over anhydrous sodium sulphate. when using a chiral auxiliary such as cinchonine, an al- After evaporation of the solvent the product was purified caloid structurally close to quinine. Later on, the same on silicagel column chromatography with hexane-ether Copyright © 2011 SciRes. IJOC 120 L. MHAMDI ET AL. mixtures as eluent. reaction involving benzaldehyde and various nitroal- Procedure B: As procedure A with addition of 2 kanes in aqueous solution (Table 1). mmol of the phase transfer catalyst. Inspection of the results of Table 1 shows that the re- activity is modest in the presence of bases such as 2.2 Darzens Reaction triethylamine and weak in the presence of carbonate anions such as K2CO3. There is no reaction with sodium Procedure C: A solution of α-chloroester or α-chl- alcoolates. oroaacid or α-chloronitrile (3.6 mmol), solvent (15 mL), This may be explained by the formation of secondary base (3.6 mmol) was introduced in a 25 mL flask eq- products issued from Cannizzaro reactions or hydrolysis uipped with a magnetic stirrer. 3 mmol of carbonyl com- in the presence of alcoolates on the contrary of reactions pound was added. The mixture was stirred during 24h at involving triethylamine or alkali carbonates. The results ambient temperature. The organic phase was extracted are in agreement with those of Zhou et al. [39] who with diethyl ether and dried over anhydrous sodium sul- found that Henry reaction of aromatic and aliphatic al- phate. After evaporation of the solvent the product was dehydes with nitromethane is promoted by triethylamine purified on silicagel column chromatography with hex- in water.(Figure 1.) ane-ether mixtures as eluent. Effect of the carbonyl compound: Procedure D: As procedure C with tetrahydrofurane The effect of the carbonyl compound was studied in a as solvent and potassium hydroxide as the base with ad- next step using nitromethane and various carbonyl com- dition of 2mmol of the phase transfer catalyst. pounds (Figure 2, Table 2). 2.3. Synthesis of Ethylene Diammonium As shown in Table 2, the reaction does not occur with Diacetate (EDD) ketones. Apparently this is due to the very weak reactiv- ity of ketones toward the carbanion formed by deproto- Ethylene diamine (3 g) in anhydrous diethylether was nation of nitromethane. Steric effects and the positive in- introduced in a 50mL flask. The flask was immersed into ductive effect lead in the case of ketones to a reduction a liquid bath maintained at 35˚C. Then, glacial acetic acid (6 g) was added. The mixture was stirred until boil- Table 1. Effect of the base in the Henry reaction. ing of ether. After 24 h cristallization occurred. The solid R1 R2 Product Base Yield (%) product was filtered and washed with ether. Finally, it CH3ONa 0 EtONa 0 was recrystallized in methanol. H 1a Et3N 46 K2CO3 21 2.4. Recording of Spectra CH3ONa 0 EtONa 0 1 13 H CH3 1b H (300 MHz) and C (75 MHz) NMR spectra are re- Et3N 42 K2CO3 18 corded on a Bruker spectrometer in DMSO-d6, with CH3ONa 0 tetramethysilane as internal reference. EtONa 0 C2H5 1c The products were analysed by GC-MS (Hewlett- Et3N 47 Packard computerised system consisting of a 5890 gas K2CO3 24 chromatograph coupled to a 5971A mass spectrometer) CH3ONa 0 EtONa 0 ionisation mode used was electronic impact at 70 eV. CH3 CH3 1d Microanalyses were performed using a C, H, N Ana- Et3N 32 K2CO3 17 lyzer Model 185 from Hewlett-Packard. I.R. spectra are Procedure A recorded in KBr on a Bruker Tensor 27 spectrometer in –1 the range 4000 - 400 cm . R1 R1 Base (1eq) All the products were confirmed by comparing their C H CHO + CH NO C H CH C NO 1 13 6 5 2 6 5 2 IR, MS, H NMR and C NMR data with literature data H2O ; 25°C ; 24h 2 2 [9,10,12,37,38]. R OH R Figure 1. Henry reaction of benzaldehyde with nitroalkane. 3. Results and Discussion 1 O R Et N (1eq) 3 2 C + H3CNO2 R C CH2 NO2 3.1. Henry Reaction H O ; 25°C ; 24h R1 R2 2 OH Effect of the base: Figure 2. Henry reaction of nitromethane with carbonyl We have examined the nature of the base in the Henry compound. Copyright © 2011 SciRes. IJOC L. MHAMDI ET AL. 121 Table 2. Effect of the carbonyl compound in the Henry re- the structure of the alkyl or aryl groups on the nitrogen action. atom and, also, on the nature of the counter-ion. It may R1 R2 Product Yield (%) also be noticed that the presence of a lipophilic group H C6H5 1a 46 (this is the case of Aliquat-336) is beneficial for the for- H C3H7 1e 48 mation of the Henry adduct as it facilitates the nucleo- H Cl-C6H4 1f 54 CH3 C2H5 1g 0 philic attack on the aldehyde [31]. CH3 C6H5 1h 0 4) At last, the yield depends on the nature of the anion -(CH2)5- 1i 0 associated with the ammonium cation. It is higher with -(CH ) - 1j 0 2 4 tetrabutylammonium chloride than with the correspond- Procedure A. ing bromide. The same result was also found by D’Incan in his study examining the effect of the phase transfer of the electrophilicity of the carbon in the carbonyl group. agent on the Horner-Emmons reaction between benzal- This makes the attack of the resulting carbanion more dehyde and 1-cyanoethyl diethyphosphonate [40]. difficult. We propose the following mechanism of the Henry Effect of phase transfer catalysis: reaction involving benzaldehyde and nitromethane under In the following step we examined the nature of the PTC conditions (Figure 4). phase transfer catalyst in Henry reactions involving various aldehydes and ketones.(Figure 3.) 3.2.