Boranes Alpine-Borane

Asymmetric reduction of ketones using Alpine-borane . Alpine-borane = B-isopinocampheyl-9-borabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane. 

Fig. 7. Preparation of Alpine-borane (93) and use in the synthesis of homochiral butyrolactones and arylhydroxytetronic acids. Rg and denote small and...

Enantioselective reduction is not possible for aldehydes, since the products are primary alcohols in which the reduced carbon is not chiral, but deuterated aldehydes RCDO give a chiral product, and these have been reduced enantioselectively with B-(3-pinanyl)-9-borabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane (Alpine-Borane) with almost complete optical purity. ... 

The synthesis of chiral liquid-crystalline allenes was reported by Tschierske and co-workers (Scheme 4.10) [14]. An asymmetric reduction of 41 with Alpine borane was a key step to an enantioenriched allene 44. After removal of the silyl group, the allenic alcohol was etherified by the Mitsunobu method to give 45, the first liquid-crystalline allene derivatives. 

Highly enantioenriched 4-alken-l-yn-3-ol moieties present in many bioactive acetylenic metabolites from sponges have been efficiently obtained by reduction of the parent 1-trimethylsilyI-4-alken-l-yn-3-one 18 with Alpine-borane or with BH3-SMe2 in the presence of chiral oxazaborolidines, followed by desilylation of the resulting alcohol. This strategy has been applied to the first stereoselective synthesis of petrofuran 19 <99SL429>. 

The field of organoboron chemistry pioneered by Brown [40] also provides a wealth of excellent transformations. Consider the asymmetric reduction of carbonyl compounds by Alpine-Borane [41]. Alpine-Borane is prepared by the following sequence ... 

In the second step, achiral 9-borabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane (9-BBN) adds to the less hindered diastereotopic face of a-pinene to yield the chiral reducing agent Alpine-Borane. Aldehydes are rapidly reduced to alcohols. The reaction with deuterio-Alpine-Borane, which yields (R)-a-d-henzy alcohol in 98% enantiomeric excess ( ) reveals a very high degree of selectivity of the enantiotopic faces of the aldehyde group in a crowded transition state ... 

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