Investigation of electrochemically induced Michael addition reactions. Oxidation of some dihydroxybenzene derivatives in the presence of azide ion

In aqueous solution containing azide ion as a nucleophile, electrochemical oxidation of hydroquinone and some dihydroxybenzoic acids have been studied using cyclic voltammetry and controlled-potential coulometry. The voltammetric data show that electrochemically generated para and ortho-benzoquinones participate in Michael addition reactions with azide ions to form the corresponding diazido or diaminobenzoquinones. In this work, we have proposed various mechanisms for the electrode process and we report an efficient and one-pot method for the synthesis of 2,5-diazido-1,4-benzoquinone, 25-diamino-1,4-benzoquinone, 4,5-diamino-1,2-benzoquinone, and 2,3-diamino-5,6-dioxocyclohexa-1,3-dienecarboxylic acid based on the Michael reaction of electrochemically generated ortho and para-benzoquinones with azide ion in an undivided cell using an environmentally friendly reagent-less method in ambient conditions. An estimation of the observed homogeneous rate constant (k(obs)) of the reaction of electrochemically generated para-benzoquinone with azide ion by the digital simulation method is also presented. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.