Epoxides ring strain

The enol ether double bond is epoxidized by the peracid. Relief of the epoxide ring strain drives the rearrangement with migration of the silyl group to give the silylated a-hydroxy ketone product. 

Epoxides are cleaved by treatment with acid just as other ethers are, but under much milder conditions because of ring strain. As we saw in Section 7.8, dilute aqueous acid at room temperature is sufficient to cause the hydrolysis of epoxides to 1,2-diols, also called vicinal glycols. (The word vicinal means "adjacent/ and a glycol is a diol.) The epoxide cleavage takes place by SK2-like backside attack of a nucleophile on the protonated epoxide, giving a trans- 1,2-dio) as product. 

Unlike other ethers, epoxide rings con be cleaved by base as well as by acid. Although an ether oxygen is normally a poor leaving group in an reaction (Section 11.3), the strain of the three-membered ring causes epoxides to react with hydroxide ion at elevated temperatures. 

When lithiated, the ring strain of the three-membered heterocycle remains important, and this strain, combined with a weakening of the a-C-O bond, due to its greater polarization, make metalated epoxides highly electrophilic species [2], They react with strong nucleophiles (often the base that was used to perform the a-deprotonation) to give olefins following the elimination of M2O (Scheme 5.2, Path B), a process often referred to as reductive alkylation . 

Another circumstance that increases leaving-group power is ring strain. Ordinary ethers do not cleave at all and protonated ethers only under strenuous conditions, but epoxides are cleaved quite easily and protonated epoxides even more easily. Aziridines and episulfides, three-membered rings containing, respectively, nitrogen and sulfur, are also easily cleaved (see p. 458). ... 

Finally, it is important to mention that there are other related publications in which porphyrin macrocycles are not directly used as dipolarophiles but are transformed into new derivatives that can react with carbonyl ylides via ACE (alkene cyclobutene epoxide) reactions. This idea arose in 1997, when Russell and co-workers found that fused ester-activated cyclobutene epoxides 86 can be ring-opened to give carbonyl ylides 87, and that these can be trapped stereospecifically by ring-strained alicyclic dipolarophiles, such as 2,5-norbomadiene, to form hetero-bridged norbomanes 88 in good yields, through ACE transformations (Scheme 31) <97CC1023>. 

Alkenes may be oxidized to epoxides that are reactive metabolites because of ring strain [36] and can undergo nucleophilic attack. Epoxides are not always highly reactive species. In fact, some of them are relatively unreactive for example, the arene oxides that derive from oxidation of phenyl rings. Most drugs containing a phenyl... 

Due to conjugation, epoxides are less basic than linear ethers or larger saturated oxaheterocycles. Also, ring strain and conjugation render the two adjacent C-atoms markedly electrophilic, resulting in the characteristic alkylating activity of epoxides [3],... 

Epoxides are more reactive than other ethers. This is due to ring strain inherent in any three-atom ring system. The most useful reactions are acidic cleavage and nucleophilic cleavage. 

Unique among cyclic ethers are those with three-membered rings, the epoxides or oxiranes. Their large ring strains make them highly reactive. 

The chemistry of saturated heterocyclic compounds is characteristic of their functional group. For example, nitrogen compounds are amines, oxygen compounds arc ethers, sulfur compounds are sulfides. Differences in chemical reactivity are observed for three-membered rings, e.g., epoxides, whose enhanced reactivity is driven by the relief of their severe ring strain. This chapter discusses heterocycles that are aromatic and have unique chemical properties. 

Epoxides are much more reactive than simple ethers due to ring strain, and are useful intermediates because of their chemical versatility. They undergo nucleophilic substitution reactions with both acids and bases to produce alcohols (see Sections 4.3.7 and 5.5.4). 

The more energetic cis double bond in acyclic alkenes is epoxidized faster than the trans double bond.215 In contrast, opposite reactivity is observed for the stereoisomers of cycloalkenes, where the trans isomers are more reactive as a result of higher ring strain. This was demonstrated in the selective monoepoxidation of cis, trans-1,5-cyclodecadiene 235... 

Dioxiranes are three-membered cyclic ring peroxides that are expected to be very unstable owing to ring strain. They are effective oxygenating agents for epoxidations of olefins, allenes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, enols. and a, /i-unsaturated ketones for insertions of oxygen into X—H... 

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