Acid catalysis epoxide ring opening

Acid catalysis assists epoxide ring opening by providing a better leaving group (an alcohol) at the carbon atom undergoing nucleophilic attack. 

Enantioselective total syntheses based on asymmetric catalysis including total synthesis of strychnine, asymmetric epoxidation of a,/l-unsaturated acid derivatives, and ring opening of oxiranes 04CPB1031. 

When the attacking nucleophile is carbon-centered, intramolecular epoxide ring-opening reactions provide an entry intocarbocyclic systems. For example, epoxy allylsilane 70 cyclizes in an overwhelmingly 5-exo fashion under Lewis acid catalysis to form a putative silyl-stabilized carbocation intermediate (71) which then undergoes... 

Acid catalysis assists epoxide ring opening by providing a better leaving group (an alcohol) at the carbon atom undergoing nucleophilic attack. This catalysis is especially important if the nucleophile is a weak nucleophile such as water or an alcohol. An example is the acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of an epoxide. 

There is an important difference in the regiochemistry of ring opening reactions of epoxides depending on the reaction conditions Unsymmetncally substituted epoxides tend to react with anionic nucleophiles at the less hindered carbon of the ring Under conditions of acid catalysis however the more highly substituted carbon is attacked... 

As we ve just seen nucleophilic ring opening of ethylene oxide yields 2 substituted derivatives of ethanol Those reactions involved nucleophilic attack on the carbon of the ring under neutral or basic conditions Other nucleophilic ring openings of epoxides like wise give 2 substituted derivatives of ethanol but either involve an acid as a reactant or occur under conditions of acid catalysis... 

An interesting alcoholysis of epoxides has been reported by Masaki and coworkers <96BCSJ195>, who examined the behavior of epoxides in the presence of a catalytic amount of the Tt-acid tetracyanoethylene (TCNE, 85) in alcoholic media. Ring-opening is very facile under these conditions, typically proceeding via normal C-2 attack, as exemplified by styrene oxide (86). Certain epoxy ethers (e.g., 89) undergo C-1 attack due to anchimeric assistance. Analysis of the reaction mixtures revealed the presence of captodative ethylenes (e.g., 85) formed in situ, whieh were shown to be aetive in eatalyzing the reaction. The proposed mode of catalysis is represented by the intermediate 87. The affinity of these captodative olefins for... 

The reactions of 2,3-disubstituted epoxides with hydroxylamines and hydroxamates tend to proceed more slowly, giving variable yields of ring-opening products. Catalysis with chiral Lewis acids 20 was reported to allow asymmetric opening of me o-epoxide 19 in a good yield and (equation 13). 

The formation of phenols by opening the epoxide ring, spontaneously or by acid catalysis, is characteristic of an arene oxide form, as is shown below by monocyclic oxepins whether or not benzene oxide is present in substantial... 

Catalysis by acids, which is only rarely effective for aliphatic amines but better suited to the less basic aromatic amines [334], can promote nucleophilic attack at the most strongly polarized C-0 bond of the epoxide (Scheme 4.75) [333, 334, 339]. Vinyl epoxides react with amines in the presence of Pd(0) under mild conditions to yield allylamines [340], If such reactions are performed in the presence of an enantiomerically pure ligand, racemic vinyl epoxides can be converted into enantiomerically enriched products of nucleophilic ring opening (last example, Scheme 4.75). 

The limitation of the pinacol is the need for symmetry. This section and the next suggest ways of avoiding this problem. Unsymmetrical epoxides are easily made from alkenes and open with Lewis acid catalysis to give the more substituted of the two possible cations.9 Even such a weak Lewis acid as LiBr opens the epoxide 51 to give the tertiary cation 52 which rearranges by ring contraction to the aldehyde 53. The authors prefer to have the bromocompound 54 as an intermediate.10... 

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