Sealed tube re ac tions of the naphthosultine 8 with a se ries of elec tron-deficient dienophiles (fumaronitrile, N-phenylmaleimide, dimethyl fumarate, and dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylate) in to lu ene at 180 °C gave cor re spond ing 1:1 cycloadducts 11-14 in var i ous amounts along with re ar ranged naphthosulfolene 7 in 67-95% yields. The re ac tion of 1,2,4,5-tetra(bromomethyl)ben zene with Rongalite (so dium form al de hyde sulfoxylate) and tetrabutylammonium bro mide in DMF gave benzodisultines 17 and 18 in a com bined yield of 56%. Sealed tube re ac tions of benzodisultines 17 and 18 with a se ries of dienophiles in xylene at 200 C gave cor re spond ing 1:1 and 1:2 cycloadducts 20-27. The re sults sug gested that ther mal ex tru sion of sul fur di ox ide from these sultines led to ei ther o-naphthoquinodimethane 6 (from 8) or bis-o-quinodimethane 19 (from 17 and 18); sub se quent trap ping of these re ac tive in ter me di ates by dienophiles and SO2 gave var i ous 1:1 and 1:2 Diels-Alder ad ducts in mod est to ex cel lent yields.
IN TRO DUC TIONMuch at ten tion has been fo cused on the syn the sis of polycyclic com pounds us ing o-quinodimethane (o-QDM) 1 and its an a logues, and nu mer ous meth ods for the gen er a tion of the o-QDM in ter me di ates have been de vel oped. have been shown to lead to the o-QDM in ter me di ates.In a pi o neer ing work by Cava and co work ers, 6a the naphtho an a logue of o-QDM 6 was gen er ated us ing SO2 extru sion from sulfolene 7; how ever, a re ac tion tem per a ture of 300 C was re quired! The naphthoquinodimethane 6 was later re ported by Wirz et. al. us ing a diazene-precursor, 6b but the diazene com pound was un sta ble and had to be kept un der -40 C. Fur ther more, an in trac ta ble mix ture of prod ucts was ob tained in deaerated so lu tion of the diazene com pound.Thus, find ing an easy, high-yield method for gen er at ing naphthoquinodimethane 6 and a fur ther ex ten sion to bis-o-QDM are of par tic u lar in ter ests. Re cently we de scribed 7 the gen er a tion of a se ries of heteroaromatic o-QDMs, by ther mal ex tru sion of SO2 from cor re spond ing sultines, and ex plored their ap pli ca tion in Diels-Alder re ac tions with dienophiles in clud ing [60]fullerene. The ad van tages of us ing sultines are (1) their thermolysis oc curs at a much lower tem per a ture than that of cor re spond ing sulfolenes, 7-8 and (2) they are usu ally sta ble above room tem per a ture. We re port here our work on the syn the sis of naphthosultine 8 and benzodisultines 17 and 18 and their ap pli ca tions in Diels-Alder re ac tions with alkenes and al kynes.
RE SULTS AND DIS CUS SIONNaphthosultine 8 is readily syn the sized in three steps from 2,3-naphthalene-dicarboxylate with an over all yield of 42%, as shown in Scheme I. The 2,3-di(bromomethyl)naphtha lene 10 was ob tained in 70% yield by bromination of the naphthodiol 9, and the diol was ob tained in 96% yield from a lith ium alu mi num hy dride re duc tion of the dicarboxylate. Sub se quent treat ment of the dibromide 10 wi...