Fluorous allylic oxidation

Bayardon and Sinou have reported the synthesis of chiral bisoxazolines, which also proved to be active ligands in the asymmetric allylic alkylation of l,3-diphenylprop-2-enyl acetate, as well as cyclopropanation, allylic oxidations and Diels-Alder reactions. [62] The ligands do not have a fluorine content greater than 60 wt% and so are not entirely preferentially soluble in fluorous solvents, which may lead to a significant ligand loss in the reaction system and in fact, all recycling attempts were unsuccessful. However, the catalytic results achieved were comparable with those obtained with their non-fluorous analogues. 

Allylic oxidation (acyloxylation) can also be achieved with copper catalysts and stoichiometric amounts of peresters or an alkylhydroperoxide in a carboxylic acid as solvent [108], via a free radical mechanism (Fig. 4.40). The use of water-soluble ligands [109] or fluorous solvents [110] allows recycling of the copper catalyst. In view of the oxidants required, this reaction is economically viable only when valuable (chiral) products are obtained using asymmetric copper catalysts [111-113]. The scope of the reaction is rather limited however. 

Oxidation of alkenes. 1-Alkenes are converted to methyl ketones using a fluorous biphasic system. The catalyst can be reused several times. With a Mn(II) system allylic oxidation is observed. 

Cobalt tetraarylporphyrins with fluorine-containing substituents were active in epoxidation of alkenes using fluorous catalysis in the presence of oxygen and 2-methylpropanal [167,170-171]. Manganese and cobalt complexes of perfluorinated tetraazocyclonone catalyzed allylic oxidation of alkenes with r-BuOOH/Oa [172]. The complex with the salen ligand 57 was active in alkene epoxidation under Mikayama s conditions, and indene was epoxidated at a high stereospecificity [173]. 

Scheme 3.13 Photosensitized oxidation of allylic alcohols and cyclohexene with singlet oxygen ( O2) in the presence of a fluorous porphyrin sensitizer (31) [32a].

The issues of sensitizer degradation and purification of the oxidation products were taken into account by DiMagno et al., who used the electron-deficient fluorous porphyrin 15 (5,10,15,20-tetrakis(heptafluoropropyl)porphyrin) as a sensitizer in the photooxidation of cyclohexene and allylic alcohols in CHjCN/perfluorohexanes [26]. 

However, these methods suffer from low activities and/or narrow scope. Uemura and coworkers [74,7 5] reported an improved procedure involving the use of Pd(OAc) 2 (5 mol%) in combination with pyridine (20 mol%) and 3 A molecular sieves (500 mg per mmol of substrate) in toluene at 80 °C. This system smoothly catalyzed the aerobic oxidation of primary and secondary aliphatic alcohols to the corresponding aldehydes and ketones, respectively, in addition to benzylic and allylic alcohols. Representative examples are summarized in Table 5.7. The corresponding lactones were afforded by 1,4- and 1,5-diols. This approach could also be employed under fluorous biphasic conditions [76]. 

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