Dialkyl sulfoxides asymmetric synthesis

Enantiomerically pure sulfoxides play an important role in asymmetric synthesis either as chiral building blocks or stereodirecting groups [156]. In the last years, metal- and enzyme-catalyzed asymmetric sulfoxidations have been developed for the preparation of optically active sulfoxides. Among the metal-catalyzed processes, the Kagan sulfoxidation [157] is the most efficient, in which the sulfide is enantioselectively oxidized by Ti(OzPr)4/tBuOOH in the presence of tartrate as chirality source. However, only alkyl aryl sulfides may be oxidized by this system in high enantiomeric excesses, and poor enantioselectivities were observed for dialkyl sulfides. 

Chiral sulfoxides are useful intermediates in asymmetric synthesis. A number of methods for their preparation were developed in the last decade. An interesting displacement of dimethylphosphonylmethyl moiety, a carbon leaving group, from sulfur by Grignard reagents was used to obtain enantiomerically purep-tolyl sulfoxides.3 4 Optically pure methyl 4-bromophenyl sulfinate was subjected to a one-pot sequence yielding unsymmetrical dialkyl sulfoxides in 60-97% yield and >98% ee. A simple one-pot synthesis of chiral sulfoxides from norephedrine-derived... 

Table 2.1 Asymmetric synthesis of unsymmetrical dialkyl sulfoxides...

Mikolajczyk and coworkers have summarized other methods which lead to the desired sulfmate esters These are asymmetric oxidation of sulfenamides, kinetic resolution of racemic sulfmates in transesterification with chiral alcohols, kinetic resolution of racemic sulfinates upon treatment with chiral Grignard reagents, optical resolution via cyclodextrin complexes, and esterification of sulfinyl chlorides with chiral alcohols in the presence of optically active amines. None of these methods is very satisfactory since the esters produced are of low enantiomeric purity. However, the reaction of dialkyl sulfites (33) with t-butylmagnesium chloride in the presence of quinine gave the corresponding methyl, ethyl, n-propyl, isopropyl and n-butyl 2,2-dimethylpropane-l-yl sulfinates (34) of 43 to 73% enantiomeric purity in 50 to 84% yield. This made available sulfinate esters for the synthesis of t-butyl sulfoxides (35). 

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