Alkenes oxidation with organic peracids

Direct Oxidation with Stoichiometric Oxidants. Discovered by Prilezhaev in 1909,211 the typical epoxidation reaction of alkenes is their oxidation with organic peracids. Of the large number of different peroxycarboxylic acids used in... 

The most widely accepted method for epoxidation of alkenes remains oxidation with organic peracids. The early work (up to 1970) in this field shows that a large number of dienes and polyenes were oxidized in this manner . The most commonly used peracids are peracetic, monoperphthalic and perbenzoic acids which are most dominant in industrial applications. On the other hand, in laboratory procedures m-chloroperbenzoic acid, MCPBA, is often used, with trifluoroperacetic acid cited in more difficult transformations. Recently, the transportation of m-chloroperbenzoic acid has been restricted and the use of other peroxygen agents has been gaining acceptance as a general alternative. Among the substrate types epoxidized it would be especially worthy to point out polyunsaturated... 

The formation of peracids as the effective oxidizing species has often been proposed for oxidations with sodium percarbonate in the presence of organic acids or acid anhydrides30-32. It was observed that at room temperature and in dichloromethane as solvent, the addition of acetic anhydride induced the epoxidation by sodium perborate of mono-, di- and trisubstituted alkenes, including a,/i-unsaturated ketones in a slightly exothermic reaction33 (equation 6). 

Hydrogen peroxide and organic hydroperoxides are relatively poor oxidants in the absence of radical initiators or other specific reagents. No reaction occurs with alkenes unless a reagent capable of producing electrophilic intermediates, such as a peracid or metal peroxo complex, is used. 

The reaction in eq. 8.17 is suitable only for ethylene oxide. Other epoxides are usually prepared by the reaction of an alkene with an organic peroxyacid (often called simply a peracid). 

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