Asymmetric epoxidation ketones

Oxone, K2C03 Shi s asymmetric epoxidation with ketone 1. 

The past thirty years have witnessed great advances in the selective synthesis of epoxides, and numerous regio-, chemo-, enantio-, and diastereoselective methods have been developed. Discovered in 1980, the Katsuki-Sharpless catalytic asymmetric epoxidation of allylic alcohols, in which a catalyst for the first time demonstrated both high selectivity and substrate promiscuity, was the first practical entry into the world of chiral 2,3-epoxy alcohols [10, 11]. Asymmetric catalysis of the epoxidation of unfunctionalized olefins through the use of Jacobsen s chiral [(sale-i i) Mi iln] [12] or Shi s chiral ketones [13] as oxidants is also well established. Catalytic asymmetric epoxidations have been comprehensively reviewed [14, 15]. 

By studying the NMR spectra of the products, Jensen and co-workers were able to establish that the alkylation of (the presumed) [Co (DMG)2py] in methanol by cyclohexene oxide and by various substituted cyclohexyl bromides and tosylates occurred primarily with inversion of configuration at carbon i.e., by an 8 2 mechanism. A small amount of a second isomer, which must have been formed by another minor pathway, was observed in one case (95). Both the alkylation of [Co (DMG)2py] by asymmetric epoxides 129, 142) and the reduction of epoxides to alcohols by cobalt cyanide complexes 105, 103) show preferential formation of one isomer. In addition, the ratio of ketone to alcohol obtained in the reaction of epoxides with [Co(CN)5H] increases with pH and this has been ascribed to differing reactions with the hydride (reduction to alcohol) and Co(I) (isomerization to ketone) 103) (see also Section VII,C). 

In contrast to the epoxidation of a,/3-unsaturated ketones, the metal-catalyzed asymmetric epoxidations of o,/3-unsaturated esters are much more limited in number. Epoxidation of ethyl m-cinnamatc with Mn(salen) (26) has been reported to give a mixture of the corresponding cis-(93% ee) and trans-epoxides in a ratio of 4 1.133... 

The oxidation of enol ethers and their derivatives is a useful method for the synthesis of a-hydroxy-ketones or their derivatives, which are versatile building blocks for organic synthesis. Since enol ethers and esters are types of olefin, some asymmetric epoxidation and dihydroxylation reactions have been applied to their oxidation. 

In studies of the asymmetric epoxidation of olefins, chiral peroxycarboxylic acid induced epoxidation seldom gives enantiomeric excess over 20%.1 Presumably, this is due to the fact that the controlling stereocenters in peroxycarboxylic acids are too remote from the reaction site. An enantiomeric excess of over 90% has been reported for the poly-(Y)-alanine-catalyzcd epoxidation of chalcone.2 The most successful nonmetallic reagents for asymmetric epoxidation have been the chiral TV-sulfonyloxaziridincs3 until asymmetric epoxidation reactions mediated by chiral ketones were reported. Today, the... 

Chiral Ketone from Carbohydrate. Tu et al.100 reported a dioxir-ane-mediated asymmetric epoxidation based on the ketones derived from the low cost material D-fructose (Scheme 4-47). 

Cao et al.102 extended their discovery to the asymmetric epoxidation of enynes using ketone 130 as the catalyst and Oxone as the oxidant (Scheme 4-50). 

Subsequently, high chemoselectivity and enantioselectivity have been observed in the asymmetric epoxidation of a variety of conjugated enynes using fructose-derived chiral ketone as the catalyst and Oxone as the oxidant. Reported enantioselectivities range from 89% to 97%, and epoxidation occurs chemoselectively at the olefins. In contrast to certain isolated trisubstituted olefins, high enantioselectivity for trisubstituted enynes is noticeable. This may indicate that the alkyne group is beneficial for these substrates due to both electronic and steric effects. 

Mechanistic studies103 revealed that chiral ketone-mediated asymmetric epoxidation of hydroxyl alkenes is highly pH dependent. Lower enantioselectivity is obtained at lower pH values at high pH, epoxidation mediated by chiral ketone out-competes the racemic epoxidation, leading to higher enantioselectivity. (For another mechanistic study on ketone-mediated epoxidation of C=C bonds, see Miaskiewicz and Smith.104)... 

Following their success with chiral ketone-mediated asymmetric epoxidation of unfunctionalized olefins, Zhu et al.113 further extended this chemistry to prochiral enol silyl ethers or prochiral enol esters. As the resultant compounds can easily be converted to the corresponding a-hydroxyl ketones, this method may also be regarded as a kind of a-hydroxylation method for carbonyl substrates. Thus, as shown in Scheme 4-58, the asymmetric epoxidation of enol silyl... 

Chapters 4-6 present an overview and a comparison between the various existing strategies for asymmetric epoxidation of unfunctionalized alkenes, a, (3-unsaturated ketones and allylic alcohols. 

The asymmetric epoxidation reaction with polyleucine as catalyst may be applied to a wide range of a, 3-unsaturated ketones. Table 4.1 shows different chalcone derivatives that can be epoxidized with poly-L-leucine. The substrate range included dienes and tctracncs151. Some other examples were reported in a previous edition161 and by M. Lastcrra-Sanchcz171. 

The N-anthracenylmethyl ammonium catalysts 11 and 12 also proved to be very effective in the asymmetric epoxidation of a,p-unsaturated ketones utilizing aqueous sodium165,661 or potassium1671 hypochlorite solution as an oxidant. Protection of the hydroxyl group in the N-anthracenylmethyl ammonium salts may be essential to attain high enanti-oselectivities in the epoxidation165"671, and use of... 

S. Arai, H. Tsuge, T. Shioiri, Asymmetric Epoxidation of a,p-Unsaturated Ketones under Phase-Transfer Catalyzed Conditions , Tetrahedron Lett. 1998,39,7563-7566. 

A more versatile method to use organic polymers in enantioselective catalysis is to employ these as catalytic supports for chiral ligands. This approach has been primarily applied in reactions as asymmetric hydrogenation of prochiral alkenes, asymmetric reduction of ketone and 1,2-additions to carbonyl groups. Later work has included additional studies dealing with Lewis acid-catalyzed Diels-Alder reactions, asymmetric epoxidation, and asymmetric dihydroxylation reactions. Enantioselective catalysis using polymer-supported catalysts is covered rather recently in a review by Bergbreiter [257],... 

Further variations on the epoxyketone intermediate theme have been reported. In the first (Scheme 9A) [78], limonene oxide was prepared by Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation of commercial (S)-(-)- perillyl alcohol 65 followed by conversion of the alcohol 66 to the crystalline mesylate, recrystallization to remove stereoisomeric impurities, and reduction with LiAlH4 to give (-)-limonene oxide 59. This was converted to the key epoxyketone 60 by phase transfer catalyzed permanganate oxidation. Control of the trisubstituted alkene stereochemistry was achieved by reaction of the ketone with the anion from (4-methyl-3-pentenyl)diphenylphosphine oxide, yielding the isolable erythro adduct 67, and the trisubstituted E-alkene 52a from spontaneous elimination by the threo adduct. Treatment of the erythro adduct with NaH in DMF resulted... 

The use of a polyamino acid such as polyleucine as a catalyst for the asymmetric epoxidation of a,/l-unsaturated ketones is clearly established. The advantages and disadvantages of this methodology may be summarised as follows ... 

Substrates that undergo asymmetric epoxidation are restricted to a, -un-saturated ketones. 

One of the first attempts to extend polymer-assisted epoxidations to asymmetric variants were disclosed by Sherrington et al. The group employed chiral poly(tartrate ester) hgands in Sharpless epoxidations utilizing Ti(OiPr)4 and tBuOOH. However, yields and degree of stereoselection were only moderate [76]. In contrast to most concepts, Pu and coworkers applied chiral polymers, namely polymeric binaphthyl zinc to effect the asymmetric epoxidation of a,/9-unsaturated ketones in the presence of terPbutyl hydroperoxide (Scheme 4.11). 

Abstract Organo-catalyzed asymmetric epoxidation has received much attention in the past 30 years and significant progress has been made for various types of olefins. This review will cover the advancement made in the field of chiral ketone and chiral iminium salt-catalyzed epoxidations. 

Keywords Asymmetric epoxidation Chiral iminium salt Chiral ketone... 

Asymmetric epoxidation of olefins is an effective approach for the synthesis of enan-tiomerically enriched epoxides. A variety of efficient methods have been developed [1, 2], including Sharpless epoxidation of allylic alcohols [3, 4], metal-catalyzed epoxidation of unfunctionalized olefins [5-10], and nucleophilic epoxidation of electron-deficient olefins [11-14], Dioxiranes and oxazirdinium salts have been proven to be effective oxidation reagents [15-21], Chiral dioxiranes [22-28] and oxaziridinium salts [19] generated in situ with Oxone from ketones and iminium salts, respectively, have been extensively investigated in numerous laboratories and have been shown to be useful toward the asymmetric epoxidation of alkenes. In these epoxidation reactions, only a catalytic amount of ketone or iminium salt is required since they are regenerated upon epoxidation of alkenes (Scheme 1). 

In 1984, Curci and coworkers reported asymmetric epoxidation of olefins with ketones... 

Tomioka and coworkers reported ketones 15 and 16 as asymmetric epoxidation catalysts (Fig. 5) [42,43]. Ketone 15 was found to be prone to Baeyer-Vilhger oxidation to the lactone, thus giving low yield for the epoxidation (Table 1, entry 14). Epoxidation results were much improved with tricychc ketone 16 (Table 1, entries 15, 24). 

A catalytic amount of ketone 26 was used to investigate the substrate scope of the asymmetric epoxidation. High enantioselectivities can be obtained for a wide variety of trans- and trisubstituted olefins (Table 3, entries 1 ) [54]. Simple trans-olefins, such as franx-7-tetradecene, can be epoxidized in high yield and enantiomeric excess, indicating that this asymmetric epoxidation is generally suitable for frani-olefms. 2,2-Disubstituted vinyl silanes are epoxidized in high ees (Table 3, entries 5, 6) and enantiomerically enriched 1,1-disubstituted epoxides can be... 

Chiral Ketone and Iminium Catalysts for Olefin Epoxidation Table 3 Asymmetric epoxidation with ketone 26... 

In addition to the enantioselective epoxidation of trans- and trisnbstitnted olefins, efforts have also been made for the asymmetric epoxidation of cis- and terminal olefins. Glncose-derived ketone 55 was reported to be a highly enantioselective catalyst for the epoxidation of varions cw-olefins and certain terminal olefins (Fig. 11, Table 4) [97-100]. The resnlts of epoxidation with ketone 55 indicate that a n... 

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