An improved approach to benzene annelation: the synthesis of 11-substituted octahydro-1,4:9,10-dimethanoanthracenes and a study of OH…p bonding in these systems

Abstract

A procedure for benzene annelation, which incorporates the best features of previously reported techniques, is described and is applied to the synthesis of a series of 11-substituted octahydro-1,4:9,10-dimethanoanthracenes (1a-e). Thus addition of 1,2,3,4-tetrachloro-5,5-dimethoxycyclopentadiene(7) to (1β,4β, 4aα, 5α, 8α, 8aα)-anti-9-acetoxy-1,2,3,4,4a,5,8,8a-octahydro-1,4:5,8-dimethanonaphthalene(4b) gave the adduct (8b).* Deacetalization of (8b) followed by thermal, cheletropic loss of CO and subsequent base-induced dehydrochlorination gave the 5,6,8-trichlorooctahydro-1,4:9,10-dimethanoanthracen-anti-11-ol (17b) which could easily be converted into (1c) by using sodium and ethanol. Infrared and ¹H n.m.r. studies revealed the presence of a strong intramolecular OH…π bond in the syn-alcohol (1e). The observation of an unusually large vicinal coupling constant, J(HCOH) 12 Hz, for (1e) implies that the H-C-O-H exists in the antiperiplanar conformation which also maximizes the strength of the OH…π bond.