Abstract

We provide evidence for the first successful generation of phenylhydroxycarbene and 4-trifluoromethylphenylhydroxycarbene in solution. The carbene tautomers of the corresponding benzaldehyde derivatives had been prepared under cryogenic matrix-isolation conditions before but their reactivity, apart from a prototypical quantum mechanical tunneling [1,2]-H-shift reaction, had not been studied. Here our strategy is to employ suitable carbene precursors for the McFadyen–Stevens reaction, to generate the parent and the para-CF3-substituted phenylhydroxycarbenes, and to react them with benzaldehyde or acetone in a highly facile, allowed six-electron carbonyl-ene reaction toward the corresponding α-hydroxy ketones. Our findings are supported by computations at the DLPNO-CCSD(T)/cc-pVQZ//B3LYP/def2-TZVP level of theory.

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