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Mild Aliphatic and Benzylic Hydrocarbon C-H Bond Chlorination Using Trichloroisocyanuric Acid
Sascha H Combe1, Abolfazl Hosseini1, Alejandro Parra2
1Institute of Organic Chemistry, Justus-Liebig University , Heinrich-Buff-Ring 17, 35392 Giessen, Germany.
Abstract:
We present the controlled monochlorination of aliphatic and benzylic hydrocarbons with only 1 equiv of substrate at 25-30 °C using N-hydroxyphthalimide (NHPI) as radical initiator and commercially available trichloroisocyanuric acid (TCCA) as the chlorine source. Catalytic amounts of CBr4 reduced the reaction times considerably due to the formation of chain-carrying ·CBr3 radicals. Benzylic C-H chlorination affords moderate to good yields for arenes carrying electron-withdrawing (50-85%) or weakly electron-donating groups (31-73%); cyclic aliphatic substrates provide low yields (24-38%). The products could be synthesized on a gram scale followed by simple purification via distillation. We report the first direct side-chain chlorination of 3-methylbenzoate affording methyl 3-(chloromethyl)benzoate, which is an important building block for the synthesis of vasodilator taprostene.
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