Carbene-Catalyzed [3 + 3] Annulation of Enals and Vinyl Sulfoxonium Ylides

α-Substituted ketones or aldehydes can be synthesized from enamines by the Stork enamine reaction, named after its pioneer Gilbert Stork. Enamines are useful synthetic intermediates where the lone pair on nitrogen is in conjugation with the C=C bond. They resemble enolate ions, as the resonance forms of both species have a nucleophilic α carbon.

Ketones with α protons are deprotonated by strong bases like lithium diisopropylamide (LDA) to form enolate ions. The anion is stabilized by resonance, and its hybrid structure exhibits negative charges on the carbonyl oxygen and the α carbon. This ambident nucleophile can attack an electrophile via two possible sites: the carbonyl oxygen, known as O-attack, or the α carbon, known as C-attack. The nucleophilic attack via the carbanionic site is preferred. This is due to the...

Enols are a class of compounds where a hydroxyl group is attached to a carbon–carbon double bond, which implies that it is a vinyl alcohol. A carbonyl compound with an α hydrogen undergoes keto–enol tautomerism and remains in equilibrium with its tautomer, the enol form. Usually, the keto tautomer is present in a higher concentration than the enol tautomer due to the higher bond energy of C=O compared to C=C. Moreover, the direction of the keto–enol equilibrium is...

The attack of a nucleophile at the β carbon of an α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compound is called conjugate addition. Conjugate addition reactions of active methylene compounds, such as β-diketones, β-keto esters, β-keto nitriles, and α-nitro ketones, are called Michael addition reactions.

This lesson delves into the aldol condensation catalyzed by bases, where aldols undergo dehydration to enals. As shown in Figure 1, the β-hydroxy aldehyde formed in a base-catalyzed aldol addition reaction dehydrates on heating to yield an unsaturated carbonyl product, which is commonly referred to as an enal.

Robinson annulation is a base-catalyzed reaction for the synthesis of 2-cyclohexenone derivatives from 1,3-dicarbonyl donors (such as cyclic diketones, β-ketoesters, or β-diketones) and α,β-unsaturated carbonyl acceptors. Named after Sir Robert Robinson, who discovered it, this reaction yields a six-membered ring with three new C–C bonds (two σ bonds and one π bond).