Borneol, dehydration

Borneol and isoboineol are respectively the endo and exo forms of the alcohol. Borneol can be prepared by reduction of camphor inactive borneol is also obtained by the acid hydration of pinene or camphene. Borneol has a smell like camphor. The m.p. of the optically active forms is 208-5 C but the racemic form has m.p. 210-5 C. Oxidized to camphor, dehydrated to camphene. 

Isoborneol yields camphor on oxidation, but it yields camphene on dehydration much more readily than borneol does. If a solution of isoborneol in benzene be heated with chloride of zinc for an hour, an almost quantitative yield of camphene is obtained. Pure borneol under the same conditions is practically unchanged. 

Borneol is oxidized to camphor with chromic or nitric acid dehydration with dilute acids yields camphene. Borneol is readily esterified with acids, but on an industrial scale bornyl esters are prepared by other routes. For example, levorotatory borneol is synthesized industrially from levorotatory pinenes by Wagner-Meerwein rearrangement with dilute acid, followed by hydrolysis of the resulting esters [86],... 

Boric acid is a mild dehydrating agent suitable for removal of water from some primary, secondary, or tertiary alcohols. Since the acid and the alcohol form first a trimeric metaboric ester, which then regenerates the boric acid when it decomposes to the olefin,36 the reaction is somewhat similar to pyrolysis of carboxylic esters but the boric acid dehydration occurs at appreciably lower temperatures (250-300°). Olefins are readily obtained by heating approximately molar equivalents of boric acid and 1-octanol, 1-heptanol, 1-hexanol, (—)-menthol, cyclohexanol, or 5cyclohexane-methanol, and cyclobutanemethanol.38... 

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