Alkene resolutions

Among chiral dialkylboranes, diisopinocampheylborane (8) is the most important and best-studied asymmetric hydroborating agent. It is obtained in both enantiomeric forms from naturally occurring a-pinene. Several procedures for its synthesis have been developed (151—153). The most convenient one, providing product of essentially 100% ee, involves the hydroboration of a-pinene with borane—dimethyl sulfide in tetrahydrofuran (154). Other chiral dialkylboranes derived from terpenes, eg, 2- and 3-carene (155), limonene (156), and longifolene (157,158), can also be prepared by controlled hydroboration. A more tedious approach to chiral dialkylboranes is based on the resolution of racemates. /n j -2,5-Dimethylborolane, which shows excellent enantioselectivity in the hydroboration of all principal classes of prochiral alkenes except 1,1-disubstituted terminal double bonds, has been... 

Stopping the reaction before completion. This method is very similar to the asymmetric syntheses discussed on page 132. A method has been developed to evaluate the enantiomeric ratio of kinetic resolution using only the extent of substrate conversion. An important application of this method is the resolution of racemic alkenes by treatment with optically active diisopinocampheylborane, since alkenes do not easily lend themselves to conversion to diastereomers if no other functional groups are present. Another example is the resolution of allylic alcohols such as (56 with one... 

Reduction, carboxyl groups, 56,83 Reduction of a,0-unsaturated p-toluene-sulfonyl-hydrazones to alkenes, 59,42 Reductive alkylation, 56,52 Reductive cleavage, 56, 101 Resolution of amines, 55,80, 83 Rexyn 201,55,4 Rhodium(III) oxide, 57, 1 Ring contraction, 56, 107 Ring expansion of cycloalkanones to cycloalkenones, 59, 113... 

An interesting extension of this reaction is shown in the asymmetric kinetic resolution of cyclic allylic ether 44 under alkene coupling conditions. Use of (R)-12 as the catalyst gives (R)-45 in > 99% ee at 58% conversion. The ethylated product 46 is also formed in the reaction in 94% ee (Eq. 7) [25]. The reaction is effective for six- to eight-membered 3-oxacycloalkenes 47 as well as for a wide variety of alkoxycycloalkenes 48 [27], with some resolution dependency on the ring size of 47 (Fig. 2) [26]. 

With the advent of enantioselective zirconocene-catalyzed alkene carbomagnesiation,27 27a 27c 28 28a chirally modified zirconocenes soon were applied to asymmetric reductive diene carbocyclization.2 a c As demonstrated by the reductive cyclization of 5a,29 highly enantioselective cyclization is enabled through the use Brintzinger s chiral, mszz-zirconocene.30 30a (For the preparation and resolution of chiral tf .szz-zirconocene 6, see Refs 30,30a.) However, moderate diastereoselectivities and yields are generally observed (Scheme 5). 

Molybdenum catalysts that contain enantiomerically pure diolates are prime targets for asymmetric RCM (ARCM). Enantiomerically pure molybdenum catalysts have been prepared that contain a tartrate-based diolate [86], a binaph-tholate [87], or a diolate derived from a traris-1,2-disubstituted cyclopentane [89, 90], as mentioned in an earlier section. A catalyst that contains the diolate derived from a traris-1,2-disubstituted cyclopentane has been employed in an attempt to form cyclic alkenes asymmetrically via kinetic resolution (inter alia) of substrates A and B (Eqs. 45,46) where OR is acetate or a siloxide [89,90]. Reactions taken to -50% consumption yielded unreacted substrate that had an ee between 20% and 40%. When A (OR=acetate) was taken to 90% conversion, the ee of residual A was 84%. The relatively low enantioselectivity might be ascribed to the slow interconversion of syn and anti rotamers of the intermediates or to the relatively floppy nature of the diolate that forms a pseudo nine-membered ring containing the metal. 

As mentioned above, we planned to obtain optically pure styrenyl ethers through Zr-catalyzed kinetic resolution [5] subsequent metal-catalyzed rearrangement would afford optically pure chromenes. However, as shown in Scheme 11, the recovered starting material (40) was obtained with <10% ee (at 60% conversion) upon treatment with 10 mol% (,R)-(EBTHI)Zr-binol (3b) and five equivalents of EtMgCl (70°C, THF). We conjectured that, since the (EBT-HI)Zr-catalyzed reaction provides efficient resolution only when asymmetric alkylation occurs at the cyclic alkene site, competitive reaction at the styrenyl terminal olefin renders the resolution process ineffective. Analysis of the H NMR spectrum of the unpurified reaction mixture supported this contention. Indeed, as shown in Scheme 11, catalytic resolution of disubstituted styrene 49... 

Zirconocene-catalyzed kinetic resolution of dihydrofurans is also possible, as illustrated in Scheme 6.8 [18]. Unlike their six-membered ring counterparts, both of the heterocycle enantiomers react readily, albeit through distinctly different reaction pathways, to afford — with high diastereomeric and enantiomeric purities — constitutional isomers that are readily separable (the first example of parallel kinetic resolution involving an organome-tallic agent). A plausible reason for the difference in the reactivity pattern of pyrans and furans is that, in the latter class of compounds, both olefmic carbons are adjacent to a C—O bond C—Zr bond formation can take place at either end of the C—C 7T-system. The furan substrate and the (ebthi)Zr-alkene complex (R)-3 interact such that unfavorable... 

As the representative examples in Scheme 6.11 illustrate, similar stragies may be applied to the corresponding alkenyl ethers (vs. styrenyl ethers) [26], The Zr-catalyzed kinetic resolution/Ru-catalyzed metathesis protocol thus delivers optically pure 2-substituted di-hydrofurans that cannot be accessed by resolution of the five-membered ring heterocycles (see Scheme 6.8). It should be noted, however, that the efficiency of the Zr-catalyzed resolution is strongly dependent, and not in a predictable manner, not only on the presence but the substitution of the acyclic alkene site of the diene substrate. The examples shown in Scheme 6.11 clearly illustrate this issue. 

Scheme 6.11. Tandem Zr-catalyzed kinetic resolution and Ru-catalyzed conversion of the resulting optically pure ethers in the enantioselective synthesis of dihydrofurans. The efficiency of the catalytic resolution requires the presence of the pendant acyclic alkene and depends on its substitution.

Tius and co-workers elegantly applied a variant of the Nazarov reaction to the preparation of cyclopentenone prostaglandins (Scheme 19.39) [46]. Moreover, it was demonstrated that the chirality of non-racemic allenes is transferred to an sp3-hybridized carbon atom. Preparation of allenic morpholinoamide 214 and resolution of the enantiomers by chiral HPLC provided (-)- and (+)-214. Compound (-)-214 was exposed to the vinyllithium species 215 to afford a presumed intermediate which was not observed but spontaneously cyclized to give (+)- and (—)-216 as a 5 1 mixture. Compound (+)-216 was obtained with an 84% transfer of chiral information and (-)-216 was obtained in 64% ee. The lower enantiomeric excess of (—)-216 indicates that some Z to E isomerization took place. This was validated by the conversion of 216 to 217, where the absolute configuration was established. The stereochemical outcome of this reaction has been explained by conrotatory cyclization of 218 in which the distal group on the allene rotates away from the alkene to give 216. 

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