Come-back of phenanthridine and phenanthridinium derivatives in the 21st century

• Lidija-Marija Tumir,
• Marijana Radić Stojković and
• Ivo Piantanida

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2014, 10, 2930–2954, doi:10.3762/bjoc.10.312

• yields (up to 95%, Scheme 4). McBurney et al. prepared various N-heterocycles, using oxime carbonates as excellent precursors for the photoinduced generation of iminyl radicals, whereby at standard photolysis conditions, 3-substituted 6-methylphenanthridines were obtained in good to quantitative yields

• -halobenzyl)arylamines, oxime carbonates, isocyanobiphenyls, etc.). Phenanthridines are usually obtained within 2–3 reaction steps, by application of different radical initiators. An intriguing alternative is the radical generation by UV irradiation with or even without a photocatalyst. The major advantage of

Interplay of ortho- with spiro-cyclisation during iminyl radical closures onto arenes and heteroarenes

• Roy T. McBurney and
• John C. Walton

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2013, 9, 1083–1092, doi:10.3762/bjoc.9.120

• DFT computations, which gave insights into factors influencing the two cyclisation modes. Keywords: cyclisation; EPR spectroscopy; free radicals; heterocycles; oxime carbonates; Introduction Radical cyclisations onto aromatic acceptors take place readily, even though disruption of the 6π-electron

• carbocation, followed by proton loss. Kinetic or other data to help predict which mode would be favoured for a novel iminyl radical is essentially nonexistent. We discovered recently that oxime carbonates ArC(R)=N–OC(O)OR’ are clean and convenient precursors for iminyl as well as O-centred radicals [26][35

• radical intermediates to be directly monitored by EPR spectroscopy. We have now prepared a representative set of oxime carbonates with the aim of studying competition between ortho- and spiro-ring closures of the released iminyl radicals. Precursors 1a–f, 2a,b, 3 and 4, consist of O-ethoxycarbonyl