Cyclohexanones Darzens glycidic ester condensation

Recendy, Darzens reaction was investigated for its synthetic applicability to the condensation of substituted cyclohexanes and optically active a-chloroesters (derived from (-)-phenylmenthol). In this report, it was found that reaction between chloroester 44 and cyclohexanone 43 provided an 84% yield with 78 22 selectivity for the axial glycidic ester 45 over equatorial glycidic ester 46 both having the R configuration at the epoxide stereocenter. 

Early work on the asymmetric Darzens reaction involved the condensation of aromatic aldehydes with phenacyl halides in the presence of a catalytic amount of bovine serum albumin. The reaction gave the corresponding epoxyketone with up to 62% ee.67 Ohkata et al.68 reported the asymmetric Darzens reaction of symmetric and dissymmetric ketones with (-)-8-phenylmenthyl a-chloroacetate as examples of a reagent-controlled asymmetric reaction (Scheme 8-29). When this (-)-8-phenyl menthol derivative was employed as a chiral auxiliary, Darzens reactions of acetone, pentan-3-one, cyclopentanone, cyclohexanone, or benzophenone with 86 in the presence of t-BuOK provided dia-stereomers of (2J ,3J )-glycidic ester 87 with diastereoselectivity ranging from 77% to 96%. 

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