Ethers alcohol protection

The most stable protected alcohol derivatives are the methyl ethers. These are often employed in carbohydrate chemistry and can be made with dimethyl sulfate in the presence of aqueous sodium or barium hydroxides in DMF or DMSO. Simple ethers may be cleaved by treatment with BCI3 or BBr, but generally methyl ethers are too stable to be used for routine protection of alcohols. They are more useful as volatile derivatives in gas-chromatographic and mass-spectrometric analyses. So the most labile (trimethylsilyl ether) and the most stable (methyl ether) alcohol derivatives are useful in analysis, but in synthesis they can be used only in exceptional cases. In synthesis, easily accessible intermediates of medium stability are most helpful. 

Bu4N F, THF, 0°, 1 h, 52-95% yield.A primary alcohol protected as the r-butyldimethylsilyl ether is cleaved under these conditions, but a similarly protected secondary alcohol is stable. 

Silyl-derived protective groups are also used to mask the thiol function. A complete compilation is not given here since silyl derivatives are described in the section on alcohol protection. The formation and cleavage of silyl thioethers proceed analogously to simple alcohols. The Si—S bond is weaker than the Si—O bond, and therefore sulfur derivatives are more susceptible to hydrolysis. For the most part silyl ethers are rarely used to protect the thiol function because of their instability. Silyl ethers have been used for in situ protection of the — SH group during amide formation. ... 

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