Alcohols transition metal-catalyzed

In mechanistic studies, monodeuterated alcohols were obtained by using PrOD (Scheme 14). These results indicate that the intermediate for this transfer hydrogenation was not a dihydride complex but rather a monohydride complex, which was generally accepted by analogous transition-metal-catalyzed reactions [55-57]. 

Scheme 53 Transition metal catalyzed isomerization of allylic alcohols...

Hydrido(alkoxo) complexes of late transition metals are postulated as intermediates in the transition metal-catalyzed hydrogenation of ketones (Eq. 6.17), the hydrogenation of CO to MeOH, hydrogen transfer reactions and alcohol homologation. However, the successful isolation of such complexes from the catalytic systems was very rare [32-37]. 

The oxidation of alcohols is an important reaction in organic chemistry. While this transformation is traditionally performed in organic solvents, the use of aqueous orgarric solutions has just recently become a field of intense study (1-6). The effect of water on transition metal-catalyzed reactions, however, remains widely unexplored as most of these reactions require dry organic solvents to avoid decomposition of the transition metal catalyst, of water sensitive reagents, and/or intermediates by a nucleophilic attack of water (1). Comparative studies focusing on the effect of water as a co-solvent on the catalyst and the proceedings of a reaction are therefore rare (7). 

For transition-metal catalyzed hydroxylation of alkane C-H bonds, the reactions of alkanes with platinum(II) complexes were the most successful. In an aqueous solution of hexachloroplatinic acid and Na2PtCl4, alkanes were converted into a mixture of isomeric alkyl chlorides, alcohols, and ketones, and the platinum(IV) is reduced to platinum(II).7 The kinetics of the reaction with methane as the alkane have been described in detail.8... 

Besides Wacker oxidation, other transition-metal catalyzed oxidations have also been carried out in aqueous medium. For example, methyl groups can be selectively hydroxylated by platinum salts in water.88 In this way, p-toluenesulfonic acid was oxidized to benzy-lic alcohol, which was subsequently oxidized into the aldehyde (Eq. 3.19).89... 

To date, only one example of a combination of a photochemically induced transformation with a transition metal-catalyzed reaction has been found in the literature. This hv/Pd°-promoted process allows the synthesis of five-membered cyclic y-keto esters 5-119 from 5-iodoalkenes 5-117 in the presence of CO and an alcohol 5-118 as a nucleophile (Scheme 5.24) [41]. The yields are high, and differently substituted iodoalkenes can be employed. 

During the past few years, increasing numbers of reports have been published on the subject of domino reactions initiated by oxidation or reduction processes. This was in stark contrast to the period before our first comprehensive review of this topic was published in 1993 [1], when the use of this type of transformation was indeed rare. The benefits of employing oxidation or reduction processes in domino sequences are clear, as they offer easy access to reactive functionalities such as nucleophiles (e. g., alcohols and amines) or electrophiles (e. g., aldehydes or ketones), with their ability to participate in further reactions. For that reason, apart from combinations with photochemically induced, transition metal-catalyzed and enzymatically induced processes, all other possible constellations have been embedded in the concept of domino synthesis. 

Various transition metal complexes, in particular of late transition metals, were reported to be effective catalysts for such double bond isomerization. Because organic synthesis is the focus of this volume, this section will cover the transition metal-catalyzed isomerization of alkenes, which has the significant synthetic and industrial utilities. This chapter will also include the synthetic application, asymmetric reactions,4-6 and isomerization of alkynes, in particular, that of propargylic alcohols. 

Although transition metal-catalyzed allylic alkylation has become one of the most powerful methods in chemical synthesis, the formation of ether bonds using this process has been slow to evolve.119-121 The main reasons for this disparity are the lower nucleophilicity and higher basicity of oxygen nucleophiles, particularly those derived from aliphatic alcohols, compared to their carbon or nitrogen analogs. However, this notion has rapidly been revised, as recent advances in the O-allylation area have largely addressed the issue of the reactivity mismatch between the hard alkoxide and the soft 7r-allylmetal species to provide a considerable body of literature. 

While the notion that the alkoxides derived from aliphatic alcohols are poor nucleophiles toward 7r-allylmetal complexes has prevailed over the years, much progress made in the recent past has rendered the transition metal-catalyzed allylic alkylation a powerful method for the O-allylation of aliphatic alcohols. In particular, owing to the facility of five- and six-membered ring formation, this process has found extensive utility in the synthesis of tetrahydrofurans (THFs) (Equation (29))150-156 and tetrahydropyrans (THPs).157-159 Of note was the simultaneous formation of two THP rings with high diastereoselectivity via a Pd-catalyzed double allylic etherification using 35 in a bidirectional synthetic approach to halichondrin B (Equation (30)).157 The related ligand 36 was used in the enantioselective cyclization of a Baylis-Hillman adduct with a primary alcohol (Equation (31)).159... 

An important variant for transition metal-catalyzed carbon-nitrogen bond formation is allylic substitution (for reviews, see1,la lh). Nucleophilic attack by an amine on an 7r-allyl intermediate, generated from either an allylic alcohol derivative,2 16,16a 16f an alkenyloxirane,17-19,19a-19d an alkenylaziridine19,19a 19d, or a propargyl alcohol derivative,21,21a 21d gives an allylic amine derivative. 

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-... 

Alcohols have always been the major group of hydrogen donors. Indeed, they are the only hydrogen donors that can be used in Meerwein-Ponndorf-Verley (MPV) reductions. 2-Propanol (16) is most commonly used both in MPV reductions and in transition metal-catalyzed transfer hydrogenations. It is generally available and cheap, and its oxidation product, acetone (14), is nontoxic and can usually be removed readily from the reaction mixture by distillation. This may have the additional advantage that the redox equilibrium is shifted even more into the direction of the alcohol. As a result of sigma inductive electronic ef-... 

Hydrogen transfer reactions from an alcohol to a ketone (typically acetone) to produce a carbonyl compound (the so-caUed Oppenauer-type oxidation ) can be performed under mild and low-toxicity conditions, and with high selectivity when compared to conventional methods for oxidation using chromium and manganese reagents. While the traditional Oppenauer oxidation using aluminum alkoxide is accompanied by various side reactions, several transition-metal-catalyzed Oppenauer-type oxidations have been reported recently [27-29]. However, most of these are limited to the oxidation of secondary alcohols to ketones. 

The transition metal-catalyzed allylic substitution using hard or unstabilized nucleophiles has not been extensively studied, particularly with unsymmetrical allylic alcohol derivatives. This may be attributed to the highly reactive and basic nature of these nucleophiles and the inability to circumvent regiochemical infidehty in unsymmetrical systems. Hard nucleophiles may be characterized as those that undergo substitution with net inversion of stereochemistry [29], due to their propensity to add directly to the... 

Transition metal-catalyzed allylic substitution with phenols and alcohols represents a fundamentally important cross-coupling reaction for the construction of allylic ethers, which are ubiquitous in a variety of biologically important molecules [44, 45]. While phenols have proven efficient nucleophiles for a variety of intermolecular allylic etherification reactions, alcohols have proven much more challenging nucleophiles, primarily due to their hard, more basic character. This is exemphfied with secondary and tertiary alcohols, and has undoubtedly limited the synthetic utihty of this transformation. 

Enantioselective transition metal-catalyzed allyhc alkylation has stimulated immense interest due to its potential synthetic utihty [1 b]. Although excellent enantioselectivities have been obtained for a wide variety of cychc and acyclic aUyhc alcohol derivatives, using a wide range of chiral transition metal complexes, the ability to also control regioselectivity has proven challenging. In hght of the excellent selectivities observed for rhodium-catalyzed allyhc substitution, it would seem reasonable to assume that the enantioselective rhodium-catalyzed version may provide the definitive solution to this problem. 

For recent approaches to transition metal-catalyzed allylic etherification using alcohols, see (a) Trost, B.M. ... 

In sharp contrast to the transition metal-catalyzed allylic alkylation of allylic alcohols and their derivatives (see Chapter 11.03) where 77 -allyl-transition metal complexes are key intermediates, the benzyiic alkylation of benzyiic alcohols and their derivatives catalyzed by transition metal complexes has been quite unexplored, although 7] -benzyl-transition metal complexes have often been considered to explain the regioselectivity of transition metal-catalyzed addition to vinylarenes (Scheme 21). A3,63a... 

In conclusion, we have found a convenient and practical method for the selective reduction of C=0 bond of a wide spectrum of a-keto-)S, -unsaturated esters with Ru(p-cymene)(TsDPEN) as catalyst. The transition metal catalyzed transfer hydrogenation reaction with good selectivity and high efficiency offers possibilities to provide the optically active a-hydroxy-/l, y-unsaturated esters with chiral catalysts. Table 3.8 gives different substrates that can be reduced with Ru(p-cymene) (TsDPEN) complex in isopropyl alcohol. 

---