The stereochemistry of carbonyl olefination reaction of cyanomethylene triphenylarsorane with ketones is reported. The thermodynamically stable E isomer of the products α, β unsaturated nitrile was formed predominantly. Under the experimental conditions we adopted, the reaction conditions had little effect on the E, Z ratio of the reaction products. However, the structure of the substrate showed profound effect. The results shown in Table 1 are similar to that of the reaction of carbomethoxymethylene triphenylarosorane reported in the previous paper. When methyl t-butyl ketone was used as the substrate and the reaction carried out in benzene solution, nearly pure E isomer was obtained. The reaction mechanism was proposed as shown in the previous paper. When Δ4-cholesten-3-one was used as the substrate, change of the solvents showed more prominent effect on the E, Z ratio of the reaction product. This paper also deals with the reaction of three electron-withdrawing group (CN, COOCH3, COCH3) substituted methyltriphenylarsonium salts with ketones in the presence of K2CO3, Na2CO3/benzo-15-crown-5, K2CO3/18-crown-6 or (C2H5)3N in CH3OH solution. The latter three gave satisfactory results (Table 2). The chromotographically pure products could be obtained from the crude products by passing through silica gel column. Its E, Z ratio is nearly the same as that of the crude product. This method seems to be a good one for preparing olefinic compounds in miligram scale.

Key words: REACTION MECHANISM, CYANO GROUP, TRIPHENYL GROUP, STEREOCHEMISTRY, ORGANIC SYNTHESIS, KETONE, GROUP VA COMPOUND, GROUP VIA COMPOUND, ORGANO ARSENIUM COMPOUNDS