Computational Elucidation of a Role That Bronsted Acidification of the Lewis Acid-Bound Water Might Play in the Hydrogenation of Carbonyl Compounds with H-2 in Lewis Basic Solvents

作者：Heshmat Mojgan; Privalov Timofei^*

来源：Chemistry - A European Journal, 2017, 23(48): 11489-11493.

DOI：10.1002/chem.201700937

• Bronsted acidification
• heterolytic cleavage of H-2
• hydrogenation of carbonyl compounds
• Lewis acid
• Lewis base
• reaction mechanisms

Bronsted acidification of water by Lewis acid (LA) complexation is one of the fundamental principles in chemistry. Using transition-state calculations (TS), herein we investigate the role that Bronsted acidification of the LA-bound water might play in the mechanism of the hydrogenation of carbonyl compounds in Lewis basic solvents under non-anhydrous conditions. The potential energy scans and TS calculations were carried out with a series of eight borane LAs as well as the commonly known strong LA AlCl3 in 1,4-dioxane or THF as Lewis basic solvents. Our molecular model consists of the dative LA-water adduct with hydrogen bonds to acetone and a solvent molecule plus one additional solvent molecule that participates is the TS structure describing the cleavage of H-2 at acetone's carbonyl carbon atom. In all the molecular models applied here, acetone (O=CMe2) is the archetypical carbonyl substrate. We demonstrate that Bronsted acidification of the LA-bound water can indeed lower the barrier height of the solvent-involving H-2-cleavage at the acetone's carbonyl carbon atom. This is significant because at present it is believed that the mechanism of the herein considered reaction is described by the same mechanism regardless of whether the reaction conditions are strictly anhydrous or non-anhydrous. Our results offer an alternative to this belief that warrants consideration and further study.

• 出版日期2017-8-25