The competing mechanisms that determine the steric course of electrophilic aliphatic substitution reactions (S E 2) of configurationally stable, unstabilized R-aminoorganolithiums are compared. The steric course of the reaction of lithiated pyrrolidines and piperidines with electrophiles is variable, such as when comparisons are made between two electrophiles and a single organolithium, or between two organolithiums and a single electrophile. The possible pathways considered are single electron transfer (SET) and competing polar substitutions (S E 2ret vs S E 2inv). Catalysis of organolithium racemization by the electrophile was eliminated as a possible source of racemic products. When the products are completely racemic, our evidence suggests that SET is the most likely mechanism; when polar pathways are operative, stereoselectivities vary from 75 to 100%, and may be invertive or retentive at the carbanionic carbon, depending on the electrophile.

[formula: see text] Dynamic NMR analysis of conformationally mobile and rigid 2-tributylstannyl-N-methylpiperidines revealed an unexpected conformational effect that is manifested in a small energy difference between conformers in which the tin is equatorial and axial. The major reason appears to be a distortion of the conformer in which the C-2-Sn bond is synclinal to the nitrogen lone pair.

The solution conformation of N-methyl-2-(tributylstannyl)piperidines has been determined through the use of vicinal 119Sn-13C coupling constants, revealing a conformational distortion caused by an unexpected stereoelectronic effect in some cases. Specifically, the "equatorial" conformer is distorted into a half-chair, in which the nitrogen lone pair eclipses the C-Sn bond. This distortion, which "costs" approximately 1 kcal/mol, correlates with a conformational dependence of geminal 119Sn-15N couplings and a possible correlation with reactivity in the tin-lithium exchange reaction.

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