Fluorous Swern oxidation

Fig. 5. A Swern oxidation under fluorous conditions allows reuse of the suph-oxide reagent.

Fluorous-tagged reagents are very attractive for reactions in which a stoichiometric by-product is formed that is difficult to separate. An example is perfluor-oalkylated triphenylphosphane for use in Wittig and aza-Wittig reactions, where the corresponding phosphane oxide is removed by fluorous extraction [22, 23]. Similarly, fluorous sulfoxide has been employed in Swern oxidations, and fluorous carbodiimide has been used as a coupling reagent [24, 25]. 

Experimental Protocol. The experimental protocol for using fluorous sulfoxide 1 in the Swern oxidation is similar to the original one where DMSO is used except for the work-up details. The reactions are typically run in anhydrous CH2CI2 at —30°C for 1-2 h and then warmed to room temperature for 1 h. The reaction mixture is diluted with H2O, washed with saturated NH4CI solution, and then extracted with CH2 CI2. CH2 CI2 is subsequently... 

A fluorous analogue of DMSO has been used to perform Swern reactions [24], This widely used method of oxidizing an alcohol to an aldehyde falls down seriously from the environmental point of view due to its production of a stoichiometric amount of dimethyl sulfide. Here, a fluorous sulfoxide is prepared and used in the oxidation of several alcohols in dichloromethane, as shown in Scheme 9.12. After reaction, the sulfide is extracted into perfluorohexane and the system recycled. Unfortunately, extraction from dichloromethane was found to be difficult, but replacing the dichloromethane with toluene leads to a more efficient recovery. 

Crich, D., Neelamkavil, S. Improved method of oxidizing primary and secondary alcohols by Swern or Corey-Kim oxidation using a recyclable fluorous sulfoxide as the oxidizing agent. WO 2002-US19274 2003002526, 2003 (The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, USA). 

In the last few years fluorous combinatorial chemistry has been extended and augmented by other fluorous techniques developed by analogy with established methods in solid-phase-supported synthesis. Use of fluorous condensation reagents for the Mitsunobu reaction [23] enables easy removal of all condensation reagents except the coupled starting materials after the reaction [24] (Scheme 3.23). A fluorous variant of the Swern [25] and Corey-Kim oxidations [26] enables handling of stoichiometric quantities of malodorous dimethyl sulfide to be avoided [27] (Scheme 3.24). 

Scheme 3.24 Fluorous variants of the Swern and Corey-Kim oxidations of alcohols to the corresponding aldehydes or ketones [27] ( DK/IS = fluorous dimethyl sulfide DK/ISO = fluorous dimethylsulfoxide).

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