Ruthenium complexes alcohols

Naturally occurring Upases are (R)-selective for alcohols according to Kazlauskas rule [58, 59]. Thus, DKR of alcohols employing lipases can only be used to transform the racemic alcohol into the (R)-acetate. Serine proteases, a sub-class of hydrolases, are known to catalyze transesterifications similar to those catalyzed by lipases, but, interestingly, often with reversed enantioselectivity. Proteases are less thermostable enzymes, and for this reason only metal complexes that racemize secondary alcohols at ambient temperature can be employed for efficient (S)-selective DKR of sec-alcohols. Ruthenium complexes 2 and 3 have been combined with subtilisin Carlsberg, affording a method for the synthesis of... 

As in the case of sec-alcohols, ruthenium complex has also been investigated as a catalyst in the racemization of primary amines. In fact, Shvo s complex 2 (Figure 14.3) was employed by the Backvall s group as the catalyst of the racemization of amines under transfer hydrogenation conditions [105]. However, temperatures up to 110 °C were required for amine racemization, incompatible with the lipase resolution, and furthermore, side products were formed in the medimn and a hydrogen source was needed. To avoid these drawbacks, the racemization at high temperature was carried out after a first lipase-catalyzed KR, followed by a second KR process, and a hydrogen source such as 2,4-dimethylpentan-3-ol was employed. 

D KR of allylic alcohols can be also performed using ruthenium complexes for the racemization that occurs through hydrogen transfer reactions (vide infra) [16]. 

The research group of Backvall employed the Shvo s ruthenium complex (1) [21] for the racemization. This complex is activated by heat. For the KR they used p-chlorophenyl acetate as the acyl donor in combination with thermostable enzymes, such as CALB [20] (Figure 4.7). This was the first practical chemoenzymatic DKR affording acetylated sec-alcohols in high yields and excellent enantioselectivities. In the best case 100% conversion (92% isolated yield) with 99% ee was obtained. This method was subsequently applied to a variety of different substrates and it is employed (with a different ruthenium complex) by the Dutch company DSM for the large-scale production of (R)-phenylethanol [22]. 

A ruthenium complex [RuCl2(TPPTS)2]2 was used for regeneration of NADP+ to NADPH withhydrogen. Thus, 2-heptanonewas reduced with alcohol dehydrogenase from Thermoanaerobacter brockii in the presence of the mthenium complex, NAD P, and hydrogen at 60°C to (S)-2-heptanol in 40 % ee. Turnover number was reported to be 18 (Figure 8.6) [5cj. 

Figure 8.6 Reduction of ketone with ruthenium complex and alcohol dehydrogenase using molecular hydrogen as a hydrogen source [5c],...

The (5 )-selective DKR of alcohols with subtilisin was also possible in ionic liquid at room temperature (Table 14). " In this case, the cymene-ruthenium complex 3 was used as the racemization catalyst. In general, the optical purities of (5 )-esters were lower than those of (R)-esters described in Table 5. 

Manufacture of ruthenium precatalysts for asymmetric hydrogenation. The technology in-licensed from the JST for the asymmetric reduction of ketones originally employed BINAP as the diphosphine and an expensive diamine, DAIPEN." Owing to the presence of several patents surrounding ruthenium complexes of BINAP and Xylyl-BINAP, [HexaPHEMP-RuCl2-diamine] and [PhanePHOS-RuCl2-diamine] were introduced as alternative catalyst systems in which a cheaper diamine is used. Compared to the BINAP-based systems both of these can offer superior performance in terms of activity and selectivity and have been used in commercial manufacture of chiral alcohols on multi-100 Kg scales. 

Ruthenium complexes containing this ligand are able to reduce a variety of double bonds with e.e. above 95%. In order to achieve high enantioselectivity, the reactant must show a strong preference for a specific orientation when complexed with the catalyst. This ordinarily requires the presence of a functional group that can coordinate with the metal. The ruthenium-BINAP catalyst has been used successfully with unsaturated amides,23 allylic and homoallylic alcohols,24 and unsaturated carboxylic acids.25... 

A number of mechanistic pathways have been identified for the oxidation, such as O-atom transfer to sulfides, electrophilic attack on phenols, hydride transfer from alcohols, and proton-coupled electron transfer from hydroquinone. Some kinetic studies indicate that the rate-determining step involves preassociation of the substrate with the catalyst.507,508 The electrocatalytic properties of polypyridyl oxo-ruthenium complexes have been also applied with success to DNA cleavage509,5 and sugar oxidation.511... 

Various ruthenium complexes catalyze the isomerization of allylic alcohols to saturated carbonyl compounds. Ru(acac)3 is an effective catalyst for the isomerization of a wide range of allylic alcohols (Scheme 12).35... 

A tentative mechanism includes ruthenium-induced isomerization of the initial allylic alcohol via (hydrido) (7T-allyl)ruthenium complex 167 to the corresponding Ru-bound enol 168. This in. ( ////-generated nucleophile complex can then add to aldehydes or imines under formation of the desired products. 

Ruthenium catalysts have also been used in this context.200,201 In particular, the cationic ruthenium complex, CpRu(CH3CN)3PF6, in conjunction with carboxylic acid ligand 3, has been used to achieve the remarkably chemoselective allylation of a variety of alcohols via dehydrative condensation with allyl alcohol (Equation (50)).202 It is worth noting that this transformation proceeds with 0.05 mol% catalyst loading and does not require the use of excess allyl alcohol. 

It has been shown previously how water-soluble rhodium Rh-TPPTS catalysts allow for efficient aldehyde reduction, although chemoselectivity favors the olefmic bond in the case of unsaturated aldehydes [17]. The analogous ruthenium complex shows selectivity towards the unsaturated alcohol in the case of crotonaldehyde and cinnamaldehyde [31]. 

The use of water-soluble ligands was referred to previously for both ruthenium and rhodium complexes. As in the case of ruthenium complexes, the use of an aqueous biphasic system leads to a clear enhancement of selectivity towards the unsaturated alcohol [34]. Among the series of systems tested, the most convenient catalysts were obtained from mixtures of OsCl3 3H20 with TPPMS (or better still TPPTS) as they are easily prepared and provide reasonable activities and modest selectivities. As with their ruthenium and rhodium analogues, the main advantage is the ease of catalyst recycling with no loss of activity or selectivity. However, the ruthenium-based catalysts are far superior. 

In the transition metal-catalyzed reactions described above, the addition of a small quantity of base dramatically increases the reaction rate [17-21]. A more elegant approach is to include a basic site into the catalysts, as is depicted in Scheme 20.13. Noyori and others proposed a mechanism for reactions catalyzed with these 16-electron ruthenium complexes (30) that involves a six-membered transition state (31) [48-50]. The basic nitrogen atom of the ligand abstracts the hydroxyl proton from the hydrogen donor (16) and, in a concerted manner, a hydride shift takes place from the a-position of the alcohol to ruthenium (a), re-... 

Other amino alcohols have also been used as chiral ligands in asymmetric catalytic hydrogen transfer. Scheme 6-54 depicts another example. Ruthenium complex bearing 2-azanorbornyl methanol was used as the chiral ligand, and the corresponding secondary alcohols were obtained in excellent ee.116... 

Cyclizations of dihydroxystilbene 256 using 4 mol % of chiral ruthenium complexes under photolytic conditions were investigated by Katsuki et al. (Scheme 65) [167]. Coordination of alcohols/phenols to Ru(IV) species generates a cation radical with concomitant reduction of metal to Ru(III). Cycli-zation of this oxygen radical followed by another cyclization provides the product 257. Catalyst 259 provided 81% ee of the product in chlorobenzene solvent. Optimization of the solvent polarity led to a mixture of toluene and f-butanol in 2 3 ratio as the ideal solvent. Substituents on the phenyl rings led to a decrease in selectivity. Low yields were due to the by-product 258. 

ASYMMETRIC HYDROGENATION OF ALLYLIC ALCOHOLS USING BINAP-RUTHENIUM COMPLEXES (S)-(-)-CITRONELLOL (6-Octen-1-ol, 3,7-dimethyl, (S)-)... 

Aromatics occur as ligands in ruthenium complexes that are used for hydrogen transfer reaction, i.e. two hydrogen atoms are transferred from a donor molecule, e.g. an alcohol, to a ketone, producing another alcohol. Especially the enantiospecific variant has become important, see Chapter 4.4. The substitution pattern of the aromatic compound influences the enantioselectivity of the reaction. 

ATH with Ruthenium Complexes of Amino Alcohol Complexes Linked to the Primary Face of P-Cyclodextrin 48... 

Fig. 17. Noyori s ATH system using ruthenium complexes of chiral 1,2-amino alcohols 41 and monotosylated 1,2-diamines 42, respectively.

The ruthenium complex of 49 was chosen due to its easy accessibility and because preliminary experiments had shown that simple non-prochiral aliphatic ketones such as 4-methyl-cyclohexanone are quantitatively reduced. This positive outcome encouraged us to test various prochiral aliphatic ketones 64-75. The results using standard conditions are summarized in Fig. 23. Most substrates could be reduced in good yields and the enantioselectivities of six alcoholic products are higher than 85%, 2-decanone 67 and geranylacetone 68 showed even ee s of 95%, demonstrating that the concept works well not only for aromatic ketones. 

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