Doubly activated supramolecular reaction: transesterification of acyclic oligoether esters with metal alkoxides

Transesterification reactions of acyclic oligoether esters E3-E10 with metal alkoxides were accelerated upon noncovalent complexation of the esters with metal ions. In the reaction of monovalent alkaline metal alkoxides, CH(3)ONa and CH(3)OK, plots of the observed rate constants k(obs) with respect to the chain length of E3-E10 showed selective acceleration of the transesterification. Compared with the shortest E3, which can hardly bind metal ion, 4.3- and 6.6-fold accelerations in the maxima were achieved in the combinations of E5/CH(3)ONa and E6/CH(3)OK, respectively. Supramolecular intermediate complex could be spectrometrically visualized by ESI-FT-ICR-MS in the course of reaction. Kinetic experiments, together with structural analyses by means of NMR, mass spectrometry, and DFT calculations of the intermediate complexes, indicate that a size-fit complex of host substitute with alkali metal ion allows strong electron withdrawing due to the close contact of the carbonyl oxygen to the metal ion, resulting in the selective rate enhancement of the reaction, while in the reaction of E3-E10 with a divalent alkaline earth metal alkoxide, (CH(3)CH(2)O)(2)Ba, the k(obs) values increased stepwise with elongation of the side arm to attain an dramatic large acceleration. In comparison with the k(obs) of E3, 4610-fold acceleration was achieved in the reaction of E10. The double activation of the host substrate and guest counter nucleophile at once brings about this extraordinary rate acceleration. The strong wrapping complexation of long oligoether ester with barium ethoxide allows for the effective electron withdrawal from the ester carbonyl group (host activation) as well as separation of the accompanying guest alkoxide anions (guest activation).