Chemoselectivity alcohol

The compound NaBH4 in the presence of Me2N=CHCl" Cl" reduces carboxylic acids to primary alcohols chemoselectively in the presence of halide, ester, and nitrile groups Fujisawa, T. Mori, T. Sato, T. Chem. Lett., 1983, 835. 

The oxidation of terminal alkenes with an EWG in alcohols or ethylene glycol affords acetals of aldehydes chemoselectively. Acrylonitrile is converted into l,3-dioxolan-2-ylacetonitrile (69) in ethylene glycol and to 3,3-dimetho.xy-propionitrile (70) in methanol[28j. 3,3-Dimethoxypropionitrile (70) is produced commercially in MeOH from acrylonitrile by use of methyl nitrite (71) as a unique leoxidant of Pd(0). Methyl nitrite (71) is regenerated by the oxidation of NO with oxygen in MeOH. Methyl nitrite is a gas, which can be separated easily from water formed in the oxidation[3]. 

AC2O, BF3 Et20, THE, 0°. These conditions give good chemoselectivity for the most nucleophilic hydroxyl group. Alcohols are acetylated in the presence of phenols. 

Analogous results were obtained for enol ether bromination. The reaction of ring-substituted a-methoxy-styrenes (ref. 12) and ethoxyvinylethers (ref. 10), for example, leads to solvent-incorporated products in which only methanol attacks the carbon atom bearing the ether substituent. A nice application of these high regio-and chemoselectivities is found in the synthesis of optically active 2-alkylalkanoic acids (ref. 13). The key step of this asymmetric synthesis is the regioselective and chemoselective bromination of the enol ether 4 in which the chiral inductor is tartaric acid, one of the alcohol functions of which acts as an internal nucleophile (eqn. 2). 

Reduction of carbon-carbon double bond Microalgae easily reduce carbon-carbon double bonds in enone. Usually, the reduction of carbonyl group and carbon-carbon double bond proceeds concomitantly to afford the mixture of corresponding saturated ketone, saturated alcohol, and unsaturated alcohol because a whole cell of microalgae has two types of reductases to reduce carbonyl and olefinic groups. The use of isolated reductase, which reduces carbon-carbon double bond chemoselectively, can produce saturated ketones selectively. 

Clean removal of trityl ether groups from O-isopropylidenated furanoses by using NaHS04-Si02 was previously described by Das et al.116 and afforded the corresponding alcohols at room temperature. The chemoselective deprotection was accomplished in yields above 91% within 2-2.5 h, leaving other protective-groups intact (Scheme 27). 

Highly diasteroselective and chemoselective reductions may be performed on the hydroxy functions of (r/6-arene)-tricarbonylchromium complexes. Treatment of the chromium-complexed benzylic alcohol 29 with triethylsilane and boron trifluoride etherate in dichloromethane at —78° to 0° gives only diastereomer 30 in 75% yield (Eq. 40).181 In a similar fashion, treatment of the complexed exo-allyl-endo-benzylic alcohol 31 with an excess of Et3SiH/TFA in dichloromethane at room temperature under nitrogen produces only the endo-aflyl product 32 in 92% yield after 1.5 hours (Eq. 41). It is noteworthy that no reduction of the isolated double bond occurs.182... 

These reaction conditions also permit the chemoselective quantitative reduction of benzaldehyde to benzyl alcohol without any concomitant reduction of either acetophenone or 3,3-dimethylbutan-2-one present in the same reaction mixture.83 Additionally, this useful method permits the reduction of aldehyde functions in polyfunctional compounds without affecting amide, anhydride, eth-ylenic, bromo, chloro, or nitro groups.79,80,319... 

Chemoselectivity between aldehydes and ketones is demonstrated by this method in the competitive reduction of a mixture of pentanal and cyclohexanone. The ratios of primary and secondary alcohols are 75 25 when catechol is used at 0° and 79 21 when 2,2/-dihydroxybiphenyl is used at room temperature. These regents are not as chemoselective as other reducing agents such as LiAlH(OBu-i)3 (87 13) and LiAlH(OCEt3)3 (94 6) at 0°.93... 

Reduction to Alcohols. The organosilane-mediated reduction of ketones to secondary alcohols has been shown to occur under a wide variety of conditions. Only those reactions that are of high yield and of a more practical nature are mentioned here. As with aldehydes, ketones do not normally react spontaneously with organosilicon hydrides to form alcohols. The exceptional behavior of some organocobalt cluster complex carbonyl compounds was noted previously. Introduction of acids or other electrophilic species that are capable of coordination with the carbonyl oxygen enables reduction to occur by transfer of silyl hydride to the polarized carbonyl carbon (Eq. 2). This permits facile, chemoselective reduction of many ketones to alcohols. 

Chemoselectivity, the production of one product type such as alcohols rather than aldehydes... 

There are important issues relating to chemoselectivity (aldehydes or alcohols may be the products and alkene isomerisation is a competing side reaction, which must be reduced to a minimum) and regioselectivity (linear aldehyde is much preferred over branched)... 

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