Posts Tagged ‘Tetrahedral carbonyl addition compound’

The formation of tetrahedral intermediates.

Friday, June 12th, 2015

In the preceding post, I discussed the reaction between mCPBA (meta-chloroperbenzoic acid) and cyclohexanone, resulting in Baeyer-Villiger oxidation via a tetrahedral intermediate (TI). Dan Singleton, in whose group the original KIE (kinetic isotope measurements) were made, has kindly pointed out on this blog that his was a mixed-phase reaction, and that mechanistic comparison with homogenous solutions may not be justified. An intriguing aspect of the (solution) mechanism would be whether the TI forms quickly and/or reversibly and what the position of any equilibrium between it and the starting ketone is. This reminded me of work we did some years ago,[1] and here I discuss that.

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References

  1. A.M. Lobo, M.M. Marques, S. Prabhakar, and H.S. Rzepa, "Tetrahedral intermediates formed by nitrogen and oxygen attack of aromatic hydroxylamines on acetyl cyanide", The Journal of Organic Chemistry, vol. 52, pp. 2925-2927, 1987. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jo00389a050