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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 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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