the phosphorous ylide (
6) reacts with a compound containing a carbonyl group, an aldehyde (
7), or a ketone to give the corresponding alkene (
8) and phosphine oxide (
9) (
Figure 2)
-
Figure 2. A general scheme of the classic Wittig reaction.
Obtaining alkenes is of great interest to researchers because alkenes could be used further as reagents for several chemical syntheses in coupling reactions and asymmetric transformations, hydrogenation, cyclopropanations, cycloadditions, epoxidations, diol formation, and so on. Most research on the Wittig reaction has been focused, especially in recent years, on triphenylphosphine-derived phosphonium salts
[6]. Non-stabilized ylides generally have an alkyl group as the side chain. Under lithium-salt-free conditions, these ylides showed a significant Z-selectivity
[3,4,11,12][3][4][11][12]. Ylides that were stabilized with neighboring vinyl or aryl groups showed rather low selectivity and usually lead to the formation of mixtures with E and Z isomers
[6,23,24,25,26][6][23][30][31][32].
Triphenylphosphine-derived ylides are the most common phosphorous reagents involved in the Wittig reaction. The synthesis of E-alkenes, starting from non-stabilized or semi-stabilized triphenylphosphoranes, is not sustainable by using the standard Wittig process. In this case, if used, the Wittig synthesis requires several modifications. If the phenyl substituents from a triphenylphosphorane were replaced with short-chain alkyl substituents (i.e., ethyl, propyl) with lower hydrophobic character, a significant increase in E-alkene isomer production was observed
[36,37,38][33][34][35]. Thus, the non-stabilized and semi-stabilized ylides derived from trialkylphosphines showed high E-isomer selectivity when used in the Wittig reaction
[6]. More recently, the Wittig reaction proved to be very useful in the field of organocatalysis
[39,40][36][37]. Compounds as styrenes, dienes, vinyl ethers, or allenes, synthesized by using the Wittig reaction, are used in organocatalysis
[6]. Organocatalysis includes a variety of chemical transformations and is used to describe any process that is facilitated by the use of a non-metallic organic catalyst
[41,42,43,44,45,46][38][39][40][41][42][43].
The Wittig synthesis could be conducted using ultrasound in order to increase the interface area (and therefore the contact) between the reagents (i.e., ylide and aldehyde or ketone). Classic Wittig methods
[1,2,3,4][1][2][3][4] are usually performed at low temperatures using strong bases. The ultrasound plays the role of a solvent by increasing the mixing process. In addition, the effects of the sonic waves are higher when the reaction is performed in small channels (diameter from 10 μm to 100 μm) than in a standard flask
[47][44].
For example, the synthesis of several cinnamic esters and their derivatives using the Wittig reaction is of great interest because such compounds are further employed in several chemical industry areas of great interest (flavors, synthetic dyes, perfumes). Moreover, cinnamic moiety is found in many biologically active molecules. From this class of compounds, 4-methoxy-ethyl-cinnamate
12 (
Figure 3) is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors were the first type of antidepressant medication developed
[47,48][44][45].
Figure 3. Synthesis of ethyl 4-methoxy-ethyl-cinnamate.
It was observed that cinnamic esters are synthesized easier, faster, and with a higher yield when the entire reactor is immersed in an ultrasonic bath. Several methods for the synthesis of this class of compounds have been published
[47,48,49,50,51,52,53][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. One example is the reaction of anisaldehyde
10 with (ethoxycarbonylmethyl)-triphenylphosphonium bromide
11 for obtaining ethyl 4-methoxy-ethyl-cinnamate
12 (
Figure 3)
[47,53][44][50].
El-Batta et al. proved that water is an effective environment for Wittig reactions by using stabilized ylides and aldehydes
[54][51]. P-anisaldehyde slowly reacts with the ylides to obtain a mixture of E/Z cinnamic ester isomers after four hours at 20 °C, with a yield of 66% at a ratio E/Z 92/8. When the temperature of the reaction increased to 90 °C, after 30 min the yield of cinnamic ester increased to 90% without affecting or changing the E/Z-ratio. The water efficiency in the reaction environment in comparison with organic solvents is obvious, as the same reaction has been reported in refluxing DCM (four hours, 8% yield), in refluxing benzene (two days, 73% yield), and in ionic liquids at 60 °C (three days, 82% yield)
[55,56,57][52][53][54]. On the other hand, when this synthesis procedure was performed in an ultrasonic bath, the product was obtained with a 70% yield in a shorter time. The protocol can be applied to different aldehydes, alkyl phosphonium salts, and bases for the Wittig synthesis of E-cinnamic esters under ultrasound in moderate to very good yields in the absence of any other phase transfer catalyst and in a shorter reaction time
[47][44].
The Wittig synthesis (sometime called the Wittig olefination) is one of the most famous phosphine-based reactions. The development of continuous flow processes for Wittig olefination reactions has undergone intensive study in recent decades, with the aim of increasing the yield. The combination of flow chemistry with microwave irradiation or ultrasonication opens a new perspective from this point of view. Many pharmaceutical compounds were synthesized through the Wittig olefination
[58][55] by using a combination of ultrasound technology and continuous flow
[59,60,61][56][57][58]. Riccaboni et al.
[47][44] developed a catalyst-free continuous flow biphasic system for the Wittig synthesis of disubstituted alkenes
15 (
Figure 4)
[62,63][59][60].
Figure 4. Ultrasound-assisted Wittig olefination in biphasic media.
The synthesis was performed starting from an aldehyde (
13), triphenyl-phosphonium bromide (
14), and NaOH at a ratio of the used reagents
13:
14:NaOH of 1:2:5 (an excess of phosphonium bromide
14 and of NaOH was used). The reaction mixture was immersed in an ultrasonic bath for enhancing the interfacial interactions in the absence of a phase-transfer catalyst (
Figure 4)
[47,62,63,64][44][59][60][61].
Modest to quantitative yields were obtained at room temperature after five minutes. The authors reported the in situ preparation of the phosphonium salt
14 by mixing triphenylphosphine (PPh
3) and ethyl 2-bromoacetate. When the phosphonium salt
14 was prepared in situ, the yields of the synthesis increased
[27][24]. A similar Wittig synthesis was proposed by Krajnc et al.
[65][62]. Benzyl-triphenyl-phosphonium bromide salt (
17) and
o- or
p-methoxy-benzaldehydes (
16) were mixed at a 1:1 eq. ratio in CH
2Cl
2 and injected together with an aqueous solution of 0.1 M NaOH. The corresponding stilbene derivative
18 (
Figure 5) was obtained after a maximum reaction time of 9–10 min. The yields changed from 68% for
o-methoxybenzaldehydes to 90% for
p- methoxybenzaldehydes.
Figure 5. Continuous flow process for the synthesis of stilbene derivatives 18 by Wittig reaction with a benzyltriphenyl-phosphonium bromide salt 17 acting both as reactant and phase-transfer catalyst.
Viviano et al. synthesized different active pharmaceutical ingredients using a Wittig olefination process
[66][63]. Starting from the aldehyde
19, different synthetic routes were used in order to synthesize the 4-aryl-3-buten-2-one intermediates 2
1a–
c. The reaction can be conducted as a continuous flow process (
Figure 6A) as follows: aldehyde
19 reacts with (acetylmethylene)triphenyl-phosphorane
20 in DMF and the products 4-aryl-3-buten-2-one intermediates
21a–
c in good yields (around 98%) at 210 °C for 10 min. Then, 4-aryl-3-buten-2-ones
21a–
c were further converted under pressure using a Raney-Ni catalyst through a hydrogenolysis reaction (
Figure 6B)
[27][24]. The hydrogenolysis represents a chemical reaction where a carbon–carbon or carbon–heteroatom bond is cleaved or undergoes “lysis” by hydrogen.
Figure 6. (A) The continuous flow Wittig olefination (B) the further reduction of the compounds 21a-c.
The hydrogenolysis reaction of the alkene
21a takes place in ethanol and the hydrogenolysis process of alkenes
21b and
21c takes place in DMF. At temperatures ranging from 20 °C to 100 °C, the final products with active pharmaceutical properties were obtained in good yields, as follows:
22a—91%,
22b—90%,
22c—94%. The compounds
22a and
22b are commonly used in cosmetics. On the other hand, the compound
22c, currently named nabumethone, is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug used to reduce pain, swelling, and joint stiffness from arthritis. Nabumethone can be used only with a doctor or pharmacist’s recommendation
[66][63].
The previously discussed examples showed the Wittig reaction employed alone on different syntheses. Moreover, the Wittig reaction could be involved in the synthesis of phosphorus compounds in tandem with other types of chemical processes in a one-step procedure. For instance, the halogenation of an ylide and the oxidation of an alcohol with the common reagent MnO2 as the oxidant and a Wittig reaction together could be conducted in a one-step procedure using ultrasounds. In the work published by Karama et al.
[67][64] the (carboethoxymethylene)triphenyl-phosphorane
23 reacted with a reactive alcohol (as for instance aromatic, allylic and propargylic alcohols) in the presence of
N-bromosuccinimide (NBS) and manganese dioxide, in CH
2Cl
2 (
Figure 7).
Figure 7. The tandem halogenation–oxidation–Wittig reaction in one-step, conducted under ultrasonication.
Another example of using the Wittig reaction as a green method (in this case also the use of ultrasounds) using phosphonium ylide as reagent is the work of Maity et al.
[68][65]. The Wittig process was performed under ultrasonication, starting from aldehydes (
26,
29) and ylides (
27). The products
28 and
30 were further obtained with high yields as a mixture of E- and Z-isomers (E/Z = 76/24 in the case of the product
28, and 84/16 in the case of the compound
30)
[68][65] (
Figure 8a,b).
Figure 8. Examples of two Wittig reactions used as green methods, performed under ultrasound.
The ultrasound irradiation for the Wittig reaction is usually performed in a water bath of an ultrasonic cleaner with a frequency of approximately 40 KHz and a power of approximately 250 W
[69][66]. Currently, several products of growing interest are synthesized in this way. Benzoquinones, for instance, represent an important class of biologically active compounds, which were also obtained by the Wittig reaction performed under ultrasound.
[64,69][61][66] 2-methoxy-6-alkyl-1,4-benzoquinones are compounds that occur in nature (usually in plants) and most of them have significant biological activity (anti-cancer activity and 5-1ipoxygenase inhibitory activity). Lipoxygenase enzymes catalyze the deoxygenation processes of polyunsaturated fatty acids to obtain lipids. The ultrasound-assisted Wittig reaction of
o-vanillin
31 with alkyltriphenyl phosphonium bromides
32 in the presence of K
2CO
3 leads to the formation of styrene
35 in 72–81% yields (
Figure 9)
[5,64][5][61].
Figure 9. The Wittig synthesis of 2-methoxy-6-alkyl-1,4-benzoquinones, performed under ultrasonication.
This reaction requires a mixture of DMSO (
34) and water as solvents at 90–100 °C. Then, the2-methoxy-6-alkenyl-1,4-benzoquinones can be obtained through the hydrogenolysis reaction. If the hydrogenolysis of the styrene
35 is performed directly to obtain 2-methoxy-6-alkenyl-1,4-benzoquinone, the double bond from its structure is actually reduced. Consequently, the styrene
35 was first treated with metallic sodium in
n-butanol. In this way, the 2-methoxy-6-alkyl-phenols
36 were further successfully synthesized in 74–84% yields after one hour at 80–90 °C. The conjugated olefin was reduced but the isolated olefin was not affected
[5,64][5][61].
This step of the synthesis was followed by the oxidation of 2-methoxy-6-alkylphenols
36 with Fremy’s salt (KSO
3)
2NO (
37). Then, 2-methoxy-6-alkyl-1,4-benzoquinones
38 was obtained as a solid yellow product in 79–92% yields
[64][61].