Alkyl hydroperoxide-metal catalyst systems

Sulfides are generally oxidized much faster than alkenes, and in the presence of excess oxidant further oxidation to the sulfone occurs. In the cases where the reaction is conducted in an asymmetric way, the chiral catalytic system may react faster with one enantiomeric sulfoxide to form the sulfone than with the other, so that kinetic resolution of the primarily formed sulfoxide may occur. In general, the reaction is carried out with alkyl hydroperoxides like TBHP in the presence of a metal catalyst like Mo, W, Ti or V complexes. In some cases the sulfoxidation with hydroperoxides can take place without the need of a metal catalyst. Both examples will be discussed in the following. 

In general, the metal catalyst-hydrogen peroxide reagent is inferior to the corresponding metal catalyst-alkyl hydroperoxide systems for the epoxidation of olefins (see Section III.B.2). 

In this context it is worth noting that neither the titanium(IV) tartrate catalyst nor other metal catalyst-alkyl hydroperoxide reagents are effective for the asymmetric epoxidation of unfunctionalized olefins. The only system that affords high enantioselectivities with unfunctionalized olefins is the manganese(III) chiral Schiff s base complex/NaOCl combination developed by Jacobsen [42]. There is still a definite need, therefore, for the development of an efficient chiral catalyst for asymmetric epoxidation of unfunctionalized olefins with alkyl hydroperoxides or hydrogen peroxide. 

The vast majority of homogeneous catalysts are transition metal complexes and many systems have been reported, for example, Ru(III) [129], W(VI) [130], polyoxometallates [131], Re(V) [132], Fe(III) [133], and Pt(II) [134] with hydrogen peroxide, Mn(II) [135-137] with peracetic acid, and Ti-tartrate with alkyl hydroperoxides [75]. The subject of epoxidation by H2O2 has been reviewed [138-140]. 

The previous section described metal catalyzed epoxidation of allylic alcohols by alkyl hydroperoxides, and 193 was proposed as a model to predict the diastereoselectivity of these reactions,. In the cases presented, the reaction was diastereoselective but not enantioselective (sec. 1.4.F) and those epoxidation reactions generated racemic epoxides. To achieve asymmetric induction one must control both the relative orientation of the alkene relative to the peroxide and also the face of the substrate from which the electrophilic oxygen is delivered. Control of this type can be accomplished by providing a chiral ligand that will also coordinate to the metal catalyst, along with the peroxide and the alkene unit. There are two major asymmetric epoxidation reactions, one that can be applied only to allylic alcohols and is the prototype for asymmetric induction in these systems. The other is a procedure that can be applied to simple alkenes. Both procedures use a metal-catalyzed epoxidation that employs alkyl hydroperoxides, introduced in section 3.4.B.ii. 

Although alkyl peroxides are usually intermediates and products autoxidation of alkanes, the reactions between alkanes and alkyl hydroperoxides need relatively high temperature or a metal complex as a catalyst. Sometimes other compounds can induce such reactions. Eor example, -pentane and n-hcxane are oxidized by tcrf-butyl hydroperoxide in benzene solution if (t-Bu)jAl is present in the system [44]. 

Fujita et al. used a catalytic amount of a binuclear titanium(IV) complex in an attempt to find an efficient system to oxidize sulfides with high enantioselectivity [102]. Prior to this study, they investigated other systems with several transition metals. A similar asymmetric sulfoxidation was discovered [105] using a catalytic amount of nonracemic Schiff base oxovanadium complex (Table 1.4) under atmospheric conditions at room temperature in dichloromethane. With 0.1 mol% of catalyst and cumene hydroperoxide as oxidant, oxidation produces sulfoxides in excellent yields. However, the reaction is limited to alkyl aryl sulfide substrates, and the best enantioselectivity obtained was 40% ee, for (S)-methyl p-methoxy phenyl sulfoxide. 

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