Esterification secondary alcohols

Esters. Most acryhc acid is used in the form of its methyl, ethyl, and butyl esters. Specialty monomeric esters with a hydroxyl, amino, or other functional group are used to provide adhesion, latent cross-linking capabihty, or different solubihty characteristics. The principal routes to esters are direct esterification with alcohols in the presence of a strong acid catalyst such as sulfuric acid, a soluble sulfonic acid, or sulfonic acid resins addition to alkylene oxides to give hydroxyalkyl acryhc esters and addition to the double bond of olefins in the presence of strong acid catalyst (19,20) to give ethyl or secondary alkyl acrylates. 

In general, the reactions of the perfluoro acids are similar to those of the hydrocarbon acids. Salts are formed with the ease expected of strong acids. The metal salts are all water soluble and much more soluble in organic solvents than the salts of the corresponding hydrocarbon acids. Esterification takes place readily with primary and secondary alcohols. Acid anhydrides can be prepared by distillation of the acids from phosphoms pentoxide. The amides are readily prepared by the ammonolysis of the acid haUdes, anhydrides, or esters and can be dehydrated to the corresponding nitriles (31). 

Fipases and esterases are often used for Idnetic resolution of racemates, variously by hydrolysis, esterification, or transesterification of suitable precursors. Scheme 8.3-3 illustrates the principal for the resolution of a secondary alcohol by esterification with vinyl acetate. 

Esterification of tertiary alcohols poses several problems and expensive catalysts, like dimethylamino pyridine, are recommended. While esterification/transesterification/hydrolysis involving primary and secondary alcohols has been reported both with chemocatalysts and biocatalysts, terf-alcohol based esters have not found success. Recent work of Yeo et al. (1998) reports successful results for /er/-butyl octonoate using a new strain of lipase. This is a significant finding as the production of esters based on fert-alcohols (and reciprocally with hindered acids) may well be possible with biocatalysts, avoiding expensive catalysts and allowing easier separation. 

Substitution as a preceding reaction. In addition to the well known determination of primary and secondary alcohols via esterification with acetic anhydride in pyridine at about 98° C, esterification is possible at room temperature in ethyl acetate with perchloric acid117 or 2,4-dinitrobenzenesulphonic acid118 as a catalyst. However, as tertiary alcohols preferably split off their hydroxy group, they can be adequately determined by OH-substitution with HBr in glacial acetic acid according to... 

DKR of secondary alcohols with acidic zeolite (for racemization) and enzyme (CALB) (for esterification) LbL deposition onto zeolite itself... 

In particular, the combined action of a transition metal catalyst and a lipase in organic solvents for the racemization and esterification steps, respectively, has been applied for the conversion of racemic secondary alcohols into their esters... 

The one-pot dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) of ( )-l-phenylethanol lipase esterification in the presence of zeolite beta followed by saponification leads to (R)-l phenylethanol in 70 % isolated yield at a multi-gram scale. The DKR consists of two parallel reactions kinetic resolution by transesterification with an immobilized biocatalyst (lipase B from Candida antarctica) and in situ racemization over a zeolite beta (Si/Al = 150). With vinyl octanoate as the acyl donor, the desired ester of (R)-l-phenylethanol was obtained with a yield of 80 % and an ee of 98 %. The chiral secondary alcohol can be regenerated from the ester without loss of optical purity. The advantages of this method are that it uses a single liquid phase and both catalysts are solids which can be easily removed by filtration. This makes the method suitable for scale-up. The examples given here describe the multi-gram synthesis of (R)-l-phenylethyl octanoate and the hydrolysis of the ester to obtain pure (R)-l-phenylethanol. 

Oxidative cleavage of the terminal double bond of 49 by ozonolysis to the aldehyde followed by permanganate oxidation to the acid and esterification with diazomethane produced the methyl ester 50. Dieckmann cyclisation of 50, following the procedure developed in Holton s laboratory (LDA, THF, -78 °C, 0.5 h, then HOAc, THF), gave the enol ester 5J in 93% yield (90% conversion). Decarbomethoxylation of 5J. was carried out by temporarily protection of the secondary alcohol (p-TsOH, 2-methoxypropene, 100%), and heating the resulting compound 52 with PhSK in DMF, at 86 °C (3 h) to provide 53a or, after an acidic workup, the hydroxy ketone 53b. 92% yield. 

Silica is heated with alcohols containing from two to eighteen carbon atoms to 190° (with primary alcohols) or 275° (with secondary alcohols). For small-chain alcohols an autoclave is used. Esterification with higher-boiling alcohols is achieved simply by refluxing while the water formed in the reaction is removed by azeotropic distillation. A small... 

Various aldehydes 184 and alcohols have been shown to be competent in the redox esterification of unsaturated aldehydes in the presence of the achiral mesityl triazo-lium pre-catalyst 186. Both aromatic and aliphatic enals participate in yields up to 99% (Table 13). Tri-substituted enals work well (entry 3), as do enals with additional olefins present in the substrate (entries 4 and 7). The nucleophile scope includes primary and secondary alcohols as well as phenols and allylic alcohols. Intramolecular esterification may also occur with the formation of a bicyclic lactone (entry 8). 

Less reactive than acyl halides, but still suitable for difficult couplings, are symmetric or mixed anhydrides (e.g. with pivalic or 2,6-dichlorobenzoic acid) and HOAt-derived active esters. HOBt esters smoothly acylate primary or secondary aliphatic amines, including amino acid esters or amides, without concomitant esterification of alcohols or phenols [34], HOBt esters are the most commonly used type of activated esters in automated solid-phase peptide synthesis. For reasons not yet fully understood, acylations with HOBt esters or halophenyl esters can be effectively catalyzed by HOBt and HOAt [3], and mixtures of BOP (in situ formation of HOBt esters) and HOBt are among the most efficient coupling agents for solid-phase peptide synthesis [2]. In acylations with activated amino acid derivatives, the addition of HOBt or HOAt also retards racemization [4,12,35]. 

Support-bound primary or secondary aliphatic alcohols can be acylated under conditions similar to those used in solution, provided that these conditions are compatible with the chosen linker. For instance, acids can be activated with a carbodiimide either as symmetric anhydrides or as O-acylisoureas, which quickly react with alcohols in the presence of a catalyst, such as DMAP or another base, to yield esters (Table 13.12). Further acid derivatives suitable for esterification reactions on solid phase include acyl halides and imidazolides. HOBt esters react only slowly with alcohols, but enable the selective acylation of primary alcohols in the presence of secondary alcohols (Entry 5, Table 13.12). 

Another practical limitation of esterification reactions is steric hindrance. If either the acid or the alcohol participants possesses highly branched groups, the positions of equilibrium are less favorable and the rates of esterification are slow. In general, the ease of esterification for alcohols, ROH, by the mechanism described is primary R > secondary R > tertiary R with a given carboxylic acid. 

In many instances the reactivity of the primary alcohol group is greater than that of a secondary alcohol group. Certain oxidation reactions, tritylation, tosylation, and some acid catalyzed esterification reactions are those which exhibit this selectivity. The greater steric availability of this necessarily terminal function may be a factor. 

Esterification.6 Chlorotrimethylsilane is an efficient reagent for esterification of carboxylic acids by primary and secondary alcohols. It is converted into hexamethyl-disiloxane, (CH3)3SiOSi(CH3)3. Yields are typically 70-95%. 

Dynamic kinetic resolutions of secondary alcohols and amines have been achieved by the combination of biocatalysts with metal catalysts.12 For example, a metal catalyst was used to racemize the substrate, phenylethanol, and a lipase was used for the enantioselective esterification as shown in Figure 12. The yield was improved from 50% in kinetic resolution without racemization of the substrate to 100% with metal catalyzed racemization. 

P,S -Unsaturated alcohols undergo an oxidative esterification with aliphatic aldehydes in the presence of an iridium(I) catalyst and potassium carbonate.330 Precoordination of the ene-alkoxide with iridium is proposed, followed by reaction with aldehyde. Although the ester yield is high, a mixture of unsaturated and saturated esters is typically obtained, except for secondary alcohols. 

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