The Groebke–Blackburn–Bienaymé reaction in its maturity: innovation and improvements since its 21st birthday (2019–2023)

• Cristina Martini,
• Muhammad Idham Darussalam Mardjan and
• Andrea Basso

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1839–1879, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.162

• conditions can also be found. 1.1 Metal and Brønsted acid catalysts As previously mentioned, Sc triflate is the most widely used Lewis acid for the GBB reaction, generally exhibiting higher catalytic activity compared to other metal triflates, such as Yb, In or Bi. No extensive work had been done on rare

Chemo-enzymatic total synthesis: current approaches toward the integration of chemical and enzymatic transformations

• Ryo Tanifuji and
• Hiroki Oguri

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1693–1712, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.151

• approach, they used a chiral boron catalyst as a Lewis acid and achieved at best an endo/exo selectivity of 1.9:1 in a similar DA reaction. The use of Diels–Alderase in their recent work significantly improved the endo/exo selectivity under mild conditions in water, thereby highlighting the strengths of

Oxidation of benzylic alcohols to carbonyls using N-heterocyclic stabilized λ³-iodanes

• Thomas J. Kuczmera,
• Pim Puylaert and
• Boris J. Nachtsheim

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1677–1683, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.149

• experiment no formation of an alkoxyiodane was observed, indicating that the formation of this ligand-exchanged intermediate is slower than the dehydrogenation. As a consequence, we attempted to accelerate the ligand exchange through the addition of a Lewis acid and the performance of the NHIs was compared

• proposed in the initial experiments is not a Lewis acid activator but just a chloride source. Further optimization studies improved the yield to 78% of 4b using a concentration of 0.20 M of the alcohol and 1.4 equiv of 1a (see Supporting Information File 1). Finally, all NHIs were tested under the

Divergent role of PIDA and PIFA in the AlX₃ (X = Cl, Br) halogenation of 2-naphthol: a mechanistic study

• Kevin A. Juárez-Ornelas,
• Manuel Solís-Hernández,
• Pedro Navarro-Santos,
• J. Oscar C. Jiménez-Halla and
• César R. Solorio-Alvarado

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1580–1589, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.141

• generated in situ simply by mixing PIFA with a Lewis acid, in this case AlCl3. The importance of this protocol arises from the oxidation of an AlCl3-based chlorine atom, which is an available and cheap reagent. Then it is used as an electrophile source in the chlorination process with an umpolung reactivity

• energy between both states indicates the importance of the spontaneous interconversion of both species, which is observed only in the presence of two equivalents of the Lewis acid. After the addition of 2-naphthol, the chlorine atom is introduced barrier-free into the phenolic ring, producing the

Predicting bond dissociation energies of cyclic hypervalent halogen reagents using DFT calculations and graph attention network model

• Yingbo Shao,
• Zhiyuan Ren,
• Zhihui Han,
• Li Chen,
• Yao Li and
• Xiao-Song Xue

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1444–1452, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.127

• applications [27][28][29][30]. For example, hypervalent bromine(III) reagents enable C–H amination and alkene aziridination reactions without the need for additional Lewis acid activation [31][32][33]. However, challenges in the synthesis and stabilization of cyclic hypervalent bromine and chlorine reagents

A comparison of structure, bonding and non-covalent interactions of aryl halide and diarylhalonium halogen-bond donors

• Nicole Javaly,
• Theresa M. McCormick and
• David R. Stuart

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1428–1435, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.125

• (Scheme 1a) [1][2][3][4]. Hypervalent halogen compounds, specifically diaryliodonium salts, have also been known to form Lewis acid–base adducts [9][10] and a relative scale to quantify this property has recently been reported [11][12]. Consequently, there has been a recent surge in the use of

Challenge N- versus O-six-membered annulation: FeCl₃-catalyzed synthesis of heterocyclic N,O-aminals

• Giacomo Mari,
• Lucia De Crescentini,
• Gianfranco Favi,
• Fabio Mantellini,
• Diego Olivieri and
• Stefania Santeusanio

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1412–1420, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.123

• to afford, by a chemospecific Lewis acid-catalyzed ring-closure protocol, valuable heterocyclic N,O-aminals (Scheme 1). Results and Discussion Since the direct functionalization of N-heterocycles offers an attractive entry to important molecular targets that might otherwise require lengthy synthetic

• formation of N,O-aminals 5 and hemiaminals 6. Control mechanistic experiments. Optimization conditions for the Lewis acid-catalyzed intramolecular cyclization of 4a. Supporting Information Supporting Information File 16: General experimental information, synthetic procedures, analytical data and NMR

Hypervalent iodine-catalyzed amide and alkene coupling enabled by lithium salt activation

• Akanksha Chhikara,
• Fan Wu,
• Navdeep Kaur,
• Prabagar Baskaran,
• Alex M. Nguyen,
• Zhichang Yin,
• Anthony H. Pham and
• Wei Li

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1405–1411, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.122

• electrophilicity of the halogen source could be modulated to render different classes of nucleophiles for additions onto olefins in various olefin difunctionalization reactions [48][49][50][51][52]. In particular, we demonstrated that addition of either a Lewis acid or a base could activate amides to couple with

Synthetic applications of the Cannizzaro reaction

• Bhaskar Chatterjee,
• Dhananjoy Mondal and
• Smritilekha Bera

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1376–1395, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.120

• potentially useful molecules. Keywords: Cannizzaro reaction; crossed-Cannizzaro; desymmetrization; Lewis acid catalyst; natural products; Introduction The synthesis of functionalized molecules with structural complexity has always been a challenge to synthetic chemists. The Cannizzaro reaction, in its

• numerous modified techniques, which established the greener side of the reaction. The use of Lewis acid catalysis in this regard [34][35][36][37][38][39] played a significant role, which also suppressed the epimerization in the case of chiral molecules. Among the various Lewis acid catalysts such as

• methodologies, such as Lewis acid catalysis, desymmetrization of symmetrical dialdehydes, synthesis of natural products, and building blocks. These modifications constitute the main highlight of this review. The use of modern technology and newer strategies aiming towards industrial benefit is the goal for the

Generation of alkyl and acyl radicals by visible-light photoredox catalysis: direct activation of C–O bonds in organic transformations

• Mithu Roy,
• Bitan Sardar,
• Itu Mallick and
• Dipankar Srimani

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1348–1375, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.119

• conventional metal hydrides, such as tin or silicon hydrides. The reaction mechanism is interesting since first, a Lewis acid–base adduct is generated by interaction of Et3N with a boron atom of bis(catecholato)diboron (B2cat2, 19). As a result, one of the catecholate ligands experiences an increase in

Competing electrophilic substitution and oxidative polymerization of arylamines with selenium dioxide

• Vishnu Selladurai and
• Selvakumar Karuthapandi

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1221–1235, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.105

• mechanism for the formation of oxamide is shown in Scheme 6. Formation of acetanilide in the reaction of aniline and acetonitrile is known to occur in the presence of Lewis acid catalyst Al2O3 [55]. In our case, either SeO2 (Lewis acid) or H2SeO3 (Brønsted acid) may act as acid catalyst to convert aniline

Bismuth(III) triflate: an economical and environmentally friendly catalyst for the Nazarov reaction

• Manoel T. Rodrigues Jr.,
• Aline S. B. de Oliveira,
• Ralph C. Gomes,
• Amanda Soares Hirata,
• Lucas A. Zeoly,
• Hugo Santos,
• João Arantes,
• Catarina Sofia Mateus Reis-Silva,
• João Agostinho Machado-Neto,
• Leticia Veras Costa-Lotufo and
• Fernando Coelho

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1167–1178, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.99

• pentadienyl cation [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Until the past decade, the conditions used for the Nazarov reaction generally involved the use of a stoichiometric amount of a strong Lewis acid (e.g., BF3, TiCl4, SnCl4, AlCl3) in relation to the divinyl ketone derivative [21][22][23]. However

• , Dhoro and Tius demonstrated that weak acids could also be used as efficient catalysts for the Nazarov reaction [24]. In this context, some research groups developed methodologies that allowed the use of a catalytic amount of Lewis acid. By using more reactive divinyl ketone derivatives, the

Synthesis of 1,4-azaphosphinine nucleosides and evaluation as inhibitors of human cytidine deaminase and APOBEC3A

• Maksim V. Kvach,
• Stefan Harjes,
• Harikrishnan M. Kurup,
• Geoffrey B. Jameson,
• Elena Harjes and
• Vyacheslav V. Filichev

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1088–1098, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.96

• , t-BuOK), with Hoffer’s chlorosugar (13) in the presence or absence of Lewis acid (TMSOTf, SnCl4) did not result in formation of a reasonable amount of appropriate nucleoside (Scheme 2). Nucleobase 12 could not be converted to the corresponding silylated derivative by using HMDS, TMSCl or a

• , providing a linear nucleoside 17 as a mixture of two anomers, which were successfully separated on a silica gel column. Finally, cyclisation of a linear nucleoside was accomplished in the presence of a catalytic amount of the Lewis acid TMSOTf in 64% yield. Unfortunately, cyclisation was accompanied by

(Bio)isosteres of ortho- and meta-substituted benzenes

• H. Erik Diepers and
• Johannes C. L. Walker

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 859–890, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.78

• substrate. Employing Lewis acid catalysis Deng and co-workers reported an alternative pathway to indole-derived BCHs. Polysubstituted BCHs were accessed by nucleophilic addition of the indole to the activated bicyclobutane followed by a Mannich cyclisation [81]. The synthesis of wide variety of tri- and

• by Lewis acid-catalysed cyclisation of bicyclobutanes with aldehydes [84] and polysubstituted 2-oxa-BCHs bearing more complex substitution patterns were synthesised by triplet energy transfer catalysis from benzoylformate esters and bicyclobutanes [85]. Reports of polysubstituted scaffolds larger

Advancements in hydrochlorination of alkenes

• Daniel S. Müller

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 787–814, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.72

• more efficient reactions with alkene 88 (Table 6). In 2022, Oestreich reported the in situ formation of HCl by Lewis acid-induced Grob fragmentation of acid chloride 92 (Scheme 15B) [68]. The inconvenience of this method is that 92 has to be prepared in two steps, including a Birch reduction (Scheme

SOMOphilic alkyne vs radical-polar crossover approaches: The full story of the azido-alkynylation of alkenes

• Julien Borrel and
• Jerome Waser

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 701–713, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.64

• increase the yield of different transformations. Using fluoride scavenger such as TMSCl, TFAA or TMS2(O) led to similar or lower yields (Table 7, entries 3–5). We were pleased to see that in the presence of BF3·Et2O, 4a was obtained in 75% yield (Table 7, entry 6). Addition of a less acidic boron Lewis

• acid B(OTFE)3 had a detrimental effect (Table 7, entry 7). Increasing the stoichiometry of BF3 to 2 equivalents lowered the yield significantly (Table 7, entry 8). In contrast, the loading could be reduced to 30 mol % without impacting the formation of 4a (Table 7, entries 9 and 10). Finally, a fine

Enhanced reactivity of Li⁺@C₆₀ toward thermal [2 + 2] cycloaddition by encapsulated Li⁺ Lewis acid

• Hiroshi Ueno,
• Yu Yamazaki,
• Hiroshi Okada,
• Fuminori Misaizu,
• Ken Kokubo and
• Hidehiro Sakurai

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 653–660, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.58

• approaches have diligently explored the details of reaction kinetics, quantitatively elucidating the impact of encapsulated Li+ on the reactivity of the outer fullerene cage as a specialized “encapsulated” Lewis acid catalyst [10][11]. While previous studies have revealed valuable insights, such as

• electronic effects of the encapsulated Li+ Lewis acid, commonly exhibits significantly higher reactivity compared to empty C60. The much-enhanced reactivity often leads to the formation of multiadducts more notably than in the case of empty fullerenes, and hence, achieving the selective monofunctionalization

• target monofunctionalized products. The results underscore the significantly enhanced reactivity of Li+@C60 in the thermal [2 + 2] cycloaddition reaction due to the electronic effect of the encapsulated Li+ Lewis acid. Moreover, the formation of undesirable bis- and multiadducts was notably suppressed

Synthesis and biological profile of 2,3-dihydro[1,3]thiazolo[4,5-b]pyridines, a novel class of acyl-ACP thioesterase inhibitors

• Jens Frackenpohl,
• David M. Barber,
• Guido Bojack,
• Birgit Bollenbach-Wahl,
• Ralf Braun,
• Rahel Getachew,
• Sabine Hohmann,
• Kwang-Yoon Ko,
• Karoline Kurowski,
• Bernd Laber,
• Rebecca L. Mattison,
• Thomas Müller,
• Anna M. Reingruber,
• Dirk Schmutzler and
• Andrea Svejda

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 540–551, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.46

• (pentafluorophenyl)borane as a strong Lewis acid. Remarkably, greenhouse trials showed that some of the target compounds outlined herein display promising control of grass weed species in preemergence application, combined with a dose response window that enables partial selectivity in certain crops. Keywords: 2,3

• entirely unexplored prior to our investigations. Likewise, we identified an optimized BH3⋅NH3-mediated reduction involving tris(pentafluorophenyl)borane as a strong Lewis acid and subsequent treatment with formic acid as the most suitable conditions to prepare the desired 2,3-dihydro[1,3]thiazolo[4,5-b

Ligand effects, solvent cooperation, and large kinetic solvent deuterium isotope effects in gold(I)-catalyzed intramolecular alkene hydroamination

• Ruichen Lan,
• Brock Yager,
• Yoonsun Jee,
• Cynthia S. Day and
• Amanda C. Jones

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 479–496, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.43

• protodeauration pathways [15]. Widenhoefer, however, then showed that even HOTf acid catalyzed hydroaminations proceed with anti-selectivity [31]. In contrast, additions of water and indoles to alkenes are proposed to proceed via a Lewis acid-assisted Bronsted acid mode and computations suggest that gold is not

Green and sustainable approaches for the Friedel–Crafts reaction between aldehydes and indoles

• Periklis X. Kolagkis,
• Eirini M. Galathri and
• Christoforos G. Kokotos

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 379–426, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.36

• highest fungicidal activity [11]. Brønsted or Lewis acid catalysis – conventional synthetic methods The indole moiety is part of many natural products, agrochemicals, and pharmaceuticals. In medicinal chemistry, indole and its derivatives are considered important compounds, since they exhibit valuable

• catalyst due to present moisture or formation of adducts with the substrate, long reaction times, lower yields, and production of large amounts of toxic waste during work-up. The general mechanisms of protic acid and Lewis acid-catalyzed syntheses of BIMs is shown in Scheme 2. In either case, the first

• . The difference between the two mechanistic pathways is the nature of activation of the carbonyl group. Protic acids induce the protonation of the carbonyl group of the aldehyde or ketone, enhancing its electrophilic character. Whereas, Lewis acid catalysts bind to the heteroatom of the carbonyl group

Mechanisms for radical reactions initiating from N-hydroxyphthalimide esters

• Carlos R. Azpilcueta-Nicolas and
• Jean-Philip Lumb

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 346–378, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.35

• resulting concentration of radicals. In such instances, opting for a stronger catalytic reductant or utilizing a stoichiometric electron donor can greatly improve the efficiency of radical generation. On the other hand, additional factors such as the ability of Brønsted and Lewis acid additives to promote

• oxyalkylation product 28. Li and co-workers described the activation of NHPI esters towards SET using a Lewis acid catalyst, allowing for the functionalization of styrene radical acceptors with nucleophiles that do not necessarily engage in hydrogen-bonding interactions, such as electron-rich (hetero)arenes [47

• ] (Scheme 7A). Cyclic voltammetry measurements of a model NHPI ester showed a shift in its reduction potential from –1.79 V to –1.51 V (vs SCE in MeCN) in the presence of In(OTf)3. As such, it was hypothesized that the Lewis acid lowers the LUMO of the NHPI ester via interaction with the oxygen lone pair in

Synthesis of the 3’-O-sulfated TF antigen with a TEG-N₃ linker for glycodendrimersomes preparation to study lectin binding

• Mark Reihill,
• Hanyue Ma,
• Dennis Bengtsson and
• Stefan Oscarson

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 173–180, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.17

• synthesis starting from unprotected N-acetylgalactosamine and a Lewis acid-promoted reaction starting from per-acetylated galactosamine were initially tested. As reported [11], the Fischer synthesis gives low yields and α-selectivity. The Lewis acid-promoted reaction, which had worked well to produce β

Tandem Hock and Friedel–Crafts reactions allowing an expedient synthesis of a cyclolignan-type scaffold

• Viktoria A. Ikonnikova,
• Cristina Cheibas,
• Oscar Gayraud,
• Alexandra E. Bosnidou,
• Nicolas Casaretto,
• Gilles Frison and
• Bastien Nay

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 162–169, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.15

• one-pot transformation from readily available benzyl(prenyl)malonate substrates. After the photooxygenation of the prenyl moiety, the resulting hydroperoxide was directly engaged in a Hock cleavage by adding a Lewis acid. The presence of an aromatic nucleophile in the reaction mixture and that of a

1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate as suitable solvent for BF₃: the case of alkyne hydration. Chemistry vs electrochemistry

• Marta David,
• Elisa Galli,
• Richard C. D. Brown,
• Marta Feroci,
• Fabrizio Vetica and
• Martina Bortolami

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 1966–1981, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.147

• starting or stopping the electrolysis, 3) the absence of fuming, most probably due to the ability of the IL to stabilize the Lewis acid, 4) reduced sensitivity to moisture, due to the protective action of the IL, and 5) the possibility of recycling the same sample of IL for subsequent reaction cycles. In

• investigation using lower amounts of BF3·Et2O revealed that a 92% yield of 2a could be realized using 3 equiv of the Lewis acid by extending the reaction time to 65 h (Table 1, entry 10). A further reduction in the amount of BF3·Et2O to 2 equiv resulted in a lower yield of 66% after the same reaction time (65 h

• anions could coordinate the Lewis acid BF3 through the negatively charged oxygen [107], decreasing availability of BF3 for catalysis. Otherwise, ILs possessing bis(trifluoromeylsulfonyl)imide and hexafluorophosphate anions afforded hydrated product 2a with slightly better yields (87%) compared to those

Trifluoromethylated hydrazones and acylhydrazones as potent nitrogen-containing fluorinated building blocks

• Zhang Dongxu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 1741–1754, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.127

• oxidation/cyclization with NXS or Cu(OAc)2. Notably, some of the resultant CF3-substituted 1,6-dihydropyridazines exhibited aggregation-induced emission [102][103] (Scheme 16). The hydrocyanation of acylhydrazones is an important method for the preparation of α-hyrazino acids. Hu et al. reported a Lewis

• acid-catalyzed hydrocyanation of trifluoromethylated acylhydrazones, in which the product was the precursor for the preparation of chiral fluorinated amino acids [104] (Scheme 17a). Meanwhile, Hu et al. provided a novel and efficient process for the synthesis of polysubstituted 3-trifluoromethyl-1,2,4