Aryl ether synthesis, carbon-oxygen bond formation

Carbon-Oxygen Bond Formation. CAN is an efficient reagent for the conversion of epoxides into /3-nitrato alcohols. 1,2-cA-Diols can be prepared from alkenes by reaction with CAN/I2 followed by hydrolysis with KOH. Of particular interest is the high-yield synthesis of various a-hydroxy ketones and a-amino ketones from oxiranes and aziridines, respectively. The reactions are operated under mild conditions with the use of NBS and a catalytic amount of CAN as the reagents (eq 25). In another case, N-(silylmethyl)amides can be converted to A-(methoxymethyl)amides by CAN in methanol (eq 26). This chemistry has found application in the removal of electroauxiliaries from peptide substrates. Other CAN-mediated C-0 bondforming reactions include the oxidative rearrangement of aryl cyclobutanes and oxetanes, the conversion of allylic and tertiary benzylic alcohols into their corresponding ethers, and the alkoxylation of cephem sulfoxides at the position a to the ester moiety. 

The use of aryl-A3-iodanes for C-heteroatom bond formation at the a-carbon atoms of ketones and / -dicarbonyl compounds, and related transformations of silyl enol ethers and silyl ketene acetals, has been exhaustively summarized in recent reviews (Scheme 27) [5,8]. Reactions of this type are especially useful for the introduction of oxygen ligands (e. g., L2 = OH, OR, OCOR, 0S02R, OPO(OR)2), and have been extensively utilized for the synthesis of a-sulfonyl-oxy ketones and a-hydroxy dimethyl ketals. 

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