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II. Xanthates

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    24064
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    A. The Carbon Disulfide–Methyl Iodide Procedure (The Standard Procedure for Xanthate Synthesis)

    The most common method for synthesizing O-[(alkyl­thio)thio­car­bonyl] esters of carbo­hy­drates (carbohydrate xanthates) begins by forming an alkoxide ion from reaction of sodium hydride with a compound containing an unprotected hydroxyl group.1 (Imidazole usually is pres­ent in the reac­tion mix­ture to promote alkoxide ion formation.) Once formed, the alkoxide ion adds to car­bon disulfide, and the resulting anion is alkylated by methyl iodide. This procedure, which is the standard one for xanthate syn­the­sis, is sum­marized in Scheme 1.

    II11s1.png

    B. Modifications of the Standard Procedure

    1. Reagents and Reaction Conditions

    Modification of the procedure outlined in Scheme 1 sometimes is nec­es­sary to improve reactant solubility and reactivity. Minor changes take the form of replacing the normal reac­tion sol­vent (THF) with N,N-dimethyl­form­amide2,3 or methyl sulf­ox­ide.4–8 When methyl sulfoxide is the reaction solvent, sodium hydrox­ide usually replaces sodium hydride as the deproton­ating base.4,6,7

    2. Phase-Transfer Reaction

    Phase-transfer reaction provides a way for synthesizing xanthates that are difficult or im­pos­sible to prepare by the standard procedure. Anomeric xanthates, compounds that provide a synthetic challenge due to their insta­bility, can be produced by phase-transfer reaction (eq 1).9 This reaction also demon­strates the potential of the phase-transfer procedure in pre­paring xan­thates containing base-labile groups.

    II11(1).png

    C. The Phenyl Chlorodithioformate Procedure

    Esterification of an alcohol with an acid chloride provides another, but rarely used procedure for xan­thate synthesis. Heating the partially protected disac­cha­ride 1 with dibutyltin oxide pro­duces a stannylene complex that then reacts regioselectively with phenyl chloro­dithio­for­mate to give the xanthate 2 (Scheme 2).10 This reaction provides a route to carbohydrate xanthates that con­­tain an O-[(arylthio)thiocarbonyl] group. These arylthio derivatives cannot be prepared by the iodide displacement that is part of the standard xanthate synthesis.

    II11s2.png


    This page titled II. Xanthates was last modified on Wed, 14 Sep 2022 00:05:36 GMT and is shared under a All Rights Reserved (used with permission) license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Roger W. Binkley and Edith R. Binkley.

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