Electrophilic amination

Electrophilic amination is a chemical process involving the formation of a carbon–nitrogen bond through the reaction of a nucleophilic carbanion with an electrophilic source of nitrogen. Electrophilic amination is a chemical process involving the formation of a carbon–nitrogen bond through the reaction of a nucleophilic carbanion with an electrophilic source of nitrogen. Electrophilic amination reactions can be classified as either additions or substitutions. Although the resulting product is not always an amine, these reactions are unified by the formation of a carbon–nitrogen bond and the use of an electrophilic aminating agent. A wide variety of electrophiles have been used; for substitutions, these are most commonly amines substituted with electron-withdrawing groups: chloramines, hydroxylamines, hydrazines, and oxaziridines, for instance. Addition reactions have employed imines, oximes, azides, azo compounds, and others. A nitrogen bound to both a good electrofuge and a good nucleofuge is known as a nitrenoid (for its resemblance to a nitrene). Nitrenes lack a full octet of electrons are thus highly electrophilic; nitrenoids exhibit analogous behavior and are often good substrates for electrophilic amination reactions. Nitrenoids can be generated from O-alkylhydroxylamines containing an N-H bond via deprotonation or from O-alkyloximes via nucleophilic addition. These intermediates react with carbanions to give substituted amines. Other electron-deficient, sp3 amination reagents react by similar mechanisms to give substitution products. In aminations involving oxaziridines, nucleophilic attack takes place on the nitrogen atom of the three-membered ring. For some substrates (α-cyano ketones, for example), the resulting alkoxide reacts further to afford unexpected products. Straightforward β elimination of the alkoxide leads to the formation of an amine. Additions across pi bonds appear to proceed by typical nucleophilic addition pathways in most cases. Alkyl-, aryl-, and heteroaryllithium reagents add to azides to afford triazene salts. Reduction of these salts leads to amines, although they also may be converted to azides upon acidic workup with overall elimination of sulfinic acid. The most synthetically useful aminations of enolate anions employ N-acyloxazolidinone substrates. The chiral auxiliaries on these compounds are easily removed after hydrazine formation (with azo compounds) or azidation (with trisyl azide). Azidation using the latter reagent is more efficient than bromination followed by nucleophilic substitution by the azide anion Palladium on carbon and hydrogen gas reduce both azide and hydrazide products (the latter only after conversion to the hydrazine). Electrophilic aminating reagents rely on the presence of an electron-withdrawing functional group attached to nitrogen. A variety of hydroxylamine derivatives have been used for this purpose. Sulfonylhydroxylamines are able to aminate a wide array of carbanions. Azo compounds afford hydrazines after addition to the N=N bond. These additions have been rendered enantioselective through the use of chiral auxiliaries (see above) and chiral catalysts. Although the enantioselectivity of the proline-catalyzed process is good, yields are low and reaction times are long. Upon treatment with sulfonyl azides, a variety of Grignard reagents or enolates may be converted into azides or amines. A significant side reaction that occurs under these conditions is the diazo transfer reaction: instead of fragmenting into an azide and sulfinic acid, the intermediate triazene salt may break down to a diazo compound and sulfonamide. Changing workup conditions may favor one product over another. In general, for reactions of enolates substituted with Evans oxazolidinones, trifluoroacetic acid promotes diazo transfer while acetic acid encourages azidation (the reasons for this are unclear). Solvent and the enolate counterion also influence the observed ratio of diazo to azide products.