Epoxidation using phase-transfer catalysis

Michael-aldol reaction as an alternative to the Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction 14 recent results in conjugate addition of nitroalkanes to electron-poor alkenes 15 asymmetric cyclopropanation of chiral (l-phosphoryl)vinyl sulfoxides 16 synthetic methodology using tertiary phosphines as nucleophilic catalysts in combination with allenoates or 2-alkynoates 17 recent advances in the transition metal-catalysed asymmetric hydrosilylation of ketones, imines, and electrophilic C=C bonds 18 Michael additions catalysed by transition metals and lanthanide species 19 recent progress in asymmetric organocatalysis, including the aldol reaction, Mannich reaction, Michael addition, cycloadditions, allylation, epoxidation, and phase-transfer catalysis 20 and nucleophilic phosphine organocatalysis.21... 

The temperature required for the formation of diazoalkanes can be significantly decreased by using phase-transfer catalysis. This method has allowed the use of transition metals in the catalytic asymmetric epoxidation of carbonyl compounds (eq 19). The use of phase-transfer catalysis and moderate temperatures promotes the formation of diazoalkanes at a very low rate, achieving low concentrations of diazoalkane during the reaction, which is critical for the outcome of the process. The use of trisylhydrazone has shown better results in some cases compared to its tosyl analog. Presumably, the bulkier sulfonyl group may facilitate the... 

Alternatively, RC CSiMe3 cleavage can be achieved easily, avoiding the use of TBAF, by employing phase-transfer catalysis the reaction is complete in 5-10 min, and the conditions are compatible with other nucleophically labiele functional groups such as epoxides. 

Epoxidation is another important area which has been actively investigated on asymmetric phase transfer catalysis. Especially, the epoxidation of various (i.)-a,p-unsaturated ketones 68 has been investigated in detail utilizing the ammonium salts derived from cinchonine and cinchonidine, and highly enantioselective and diastereoselective epoxidation has now been attained. When 30 % aqueons H202 was utilized in the epoxidation of various a, 3-unsaturated ketones 68, use of the 4-iodobenzyl cin-choninium bromide 7 (R=I, X=Br) together with LiOH in Bu20 afforded the a,p-epoxy ketones 88 up to 92% ee,1641 as shown in Table 5. The O-substituted... 

The epoxidation of enones using chiral phase transfer catalysis (PTC) is an emerging technology that does not use transition metal catalysts. Lygo and To described the use of anthracenylmethyl derivatives of a cinchona alkaloid that are capable of catalyzing the epoxidation of enones with remarkable levels of asymmetric control and a one pot method for oxidation of the aUyl alcohol directly into... 

The catalytic asymmetric epoxidation of electron-deficient olefins, particularly a,P-unsaturated ketones, has been the subject of numerous investigations, and as a result a number of useful methodologies have been elaborated [44], Among these, the method utilizing chiral phase-transfer catalysis occupies a unique position in terms of its practical advantages. Moreover, it also allows the highly enantioselective epoxidation of trans-a,P-unsaturated ketones, particularly chalcone. 

A major improvement addressing the issue of practicability and safety by avoidance of the direct use of (potentially) explosive diazo compounds was recently reported by Aggarwal and co-workers [82, 83], The direct addition of diazo compounds was replaced by use of suitable precursors which form the desired diazo compound in situ. The Aggarwal group developed this concept for the corresponding sulfur ylide type epoxidation (see Section 6.8) [82], and successfully extended it to aziridination [83]. Starting from the tosylhydrazone salt 66 the diazo compound is formed in situ under conditions (phase-transfer-catalysis at 40 °C) which were found to be compatible with the sulfur ylide type aziridination [82, 83], The concept of this improved method, for which sulfide 67 (Scheme 5.41) is the most efficient catalyst, is shown in Scheme 5.40. 

Phase-transfer catalysis has been widely been used for asymmetric epoxidation of enones [100]. This catalytic reaction was pioneered by Wynberg et al., who used mainly the chiral and pseudo-enantiomeric quaternary ammonium salts 66 and 67, derived from the cinchona alkaloids quinine and quinidine, respectively [101-105],... 

In the metal-free epoxidation of enones and enoates, practically useful yields and enantioselectivity have been achieved by using catalysts based on chiral electrophilic ketones, peptides, and chiral phase-transfer agents. (E)-configured acyclic enones are comparatively easy substrates that can be converted to enantiomeri-cally highly enriched epoxides by all three methods. Currently, chiral ketones/ dioxiranes constitute the only catalyst system that enables asymmetric and metal-free epoxidation of (E)-enoates. There seems to be no metal-free method for efficient asymmetric epoxidation of achiral (Z)-enones. Exocyclic (E)-enones have been epoxidized with excellent ee using either phase-transfer catalysis or polyamino acids. In contrast, generation of enantiopure epoxides from normal endocyclic... 

Another important asymmetric epoxidation of a conjugated systems is the reaction of alkenes with polyleucine, DBU and urea H2O2, giving an epoxy-carbonyl compound with good enantioselectivity. The hydroperoxide anion epoxidation of conjugated carbonyl compounds with a polyamino acid, such as poly-L-alanine or poly-L-leucine is known as the Julia—Colonna epoxidation Epoxidation of conjugated ketones to give nonracemic epoxy-ketones was done with aq. NaOCl and a Cinchona alkaloid derivative as catalyst. A triphasic phase-transfer catalysis protocol has also been developed. p-Peptides have been used as catalysts in this reaction. ... 

The Darzens reaction (tandem aldol-intramolecular cyclization sequence reaction) is a powerful complementary approach to epoxidation (see Chapter 5) that can be used for the synthesis of a,P-epoxy carbonyl and a,p-epoxysulfonyl compounds (Scheme 8.32). Currently, all catalytic asymmetric variants of the Darzens reactions are based on chiral phase-transfer catalysis using quaternary ammonium salts as catalysts. 

Cyclohexene oxide is an important intermediate used, for example, in synthesis of pesticides. A process for catalytic epoxidation of cyclohexene to cyclohexene oxide by reaction-controlled phase-transfer catalysis has been commercialized in China since 2003. It is an envirorunent-friendly process compared to the polluting traditional chlorohydrin method. 

Scheme 8.7. Nucleophilic epoxidation reactions of enones. (a) Epoxidation of chalcone using phase-transfer [32] or polymeric amino acid [33] catalysis.

These reactions have been used for the synthesis of cuparenones from p-methpxyacetophenone (Scheme 98) and for the synthesis of permethylcyclo-pentanone, permethylcyclohexanone, and of permethylcyclohexane from acetone (Scheme 99). If the carbon bearing the selenenyl moiety bears at least one hydrogen, reaction of thallium ethoxide in chloroform is described to lead instead to epoxides and this was found to be the case for p-selenocylobutanols (Scheme 101). Closely related results have been observed when the reactions are performed under phase transfer catalysis simply with diloroform and potassium hydroxide as the dihalocarbene sources... 

Reaction with alkaline peroxide (or hypochlorite) and a chiral catalyst allows the asymmetric epoxidation of enones. Excellent asymmetric induction has been achieved using metal-chiral ligand complexes, such as those derived from lanthanides and (/ )- or (5)-BlNOL. Alternatively, phase-transfer catalysis using ammonium salt derivatives of Cinchona alkaloids, or the use of polyanuno acid... 

Some other very important events in the historic development of asymmetric organocatalysis appeared between 1980 and the late 1990s, such as the development of the enantioselective alkylation of enolates using cinchona-alkaloid-based quaternary ammonium salts under phase-transfer conditions or the use of chiral Bronsted acids by Inoue or Jacobsen for the asymmetric hydro-cyanation of aldehydes and imines respectively. These initial reports acted as the launching point for a very rich chemistry that was extensively developed in the following years, such as the enantioselective catalysis by H-bonding activation or the asymmetric phase-transfer catalysis. The same would apply to the development of enantioselective versions of the Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction,to the use of polyamino acids for the epoxidation of enones, also known as the Julia epoxidation or to the chemistry by Denmark in the phosphor-amide-catalyzed aldol reaction. ... 

Enantioselective phase-transfer catalysis (PTC) has been extensively applied for the alkylation, epoxidation, conjugate addition and related process, with the use of chiral ammonium salts being the typical transfer agent [293]. However, the related aldol... 

Phase transfer catalysis, which proved extremely useful in classical ylid reactions with both phosphonium and sulfonium salts (Ref, 8, 42-45), was first used with a polymer by Farrall, Durst and Frechet in 1978 (Ref, 15) according to scheme 4. In this reaction, the polymeric sulfonium salt (IX), which is suspended in a dichloromethane solution of the carbonyl compound, is treated with aqueous sodium hydroxide in the presence of tetrabutyl ammonium hydroxide to give over 95% yield of the desired epoxide together with a polymeric by-product (X) which can be recycled and reused repeatedly without any loss of activity. In contrast, the same polymeric reagent (IX) used under classical conditions affords lower yields of epoxides and loses its activity rapidly on repeated recycling. This last observation shows clearly that phase transfer catalysis may contribute significantly to the prevention of side reactions in some modifications of polymers. 

Phase-transfer catalysis with cinchona alkaloid derivatives is a very active area within the field of organocatalysis, as indicated in quite recent reviews [98c, 112]. In terms of structure, the quaternary ammonium salts can be varied in a straightforward manner by changing the structure of the benzylic compound used for the alkylation of the nitrogen atom of the quinuclidine moiety. In addition, dimeric and trimeric quaternary ammonium salts of cinchona alkaloids have been prepared [112] and applied successfully in catalysis, as exemplified in Scheme 6.55 for the epoxidation of 2,4-diarylenones [117]. 

Enantioselective oxidation is one of the most important and yet useful transformations in organic synthesis, and the asymmetric phase-transfer catalysis has made notable contributions to this field. The stereoselective epoxidation of electron-deficient olefins with peroxides is a representative example, and Taylor demonstrated the synthetic utility of this system by accomplishing the total syntheses of three natural products of manumycin family, (-l-)-MT 35214 131, (-l-)-manumycin A 132, " and (—)-alisamycin 133 (Scheme 4.31). The syntheses were undertaken by the... 

The introduction of a new catalyst system by Maruoka and coworkers using C2-symmetric binaphthyl-based chiral spiro ammonium salts 6 in 1999, paved the way for a new era in asymmetric phase-transfer catalysis. This PTC system was found to be highly effective for a variety of asymmetric transformations (e.g., Michael additions, a-amino acid syntheses, epoxidations. 

---