Functional Group Interconversions. Their Role in Achieving Synthetic Goals

PART III FUNCTIONAL GROUP INTERCONVERSIONS. THEIR ROLE IN ACHIEVEING SYNTHETIC GOALS 

FUNCTIONAL GROUPS. TRANSFORMATIONS WITHIN AND BETWEEN THE OXIDATION LEVELS. SYNTHETIC EQUIVALENCY OF FUNCTIONAL GROUPS 

The major portion of most texts on organic chemistry focuses upon reactions that result in the interconversion of functional groups. This huge body of factual material s will not be reviewed here in detail as it is impossible within the volume of this book and unnecessary for our purposes. Our goal is to highlight the importance of these interconversions in a total synthesis. The immense diversity of transformations can be actually reduced to a few types that we hope are sufficient to provide the reader with an understanding of the principles necessary to select the conversions for a chosen synthetic plan. 

Various approaches may be used to classify functional groups and pathways for their interconversion. For our purposes it seems most appropriate to use an approach based upon the oxidation state of the carbon present in the functional group.We will begin with an analysis of the oxidation states of carbon in various functional groups. 

1 The Oxidation Level of the Carbon Center and the Oassification of Functional Groups and their Interconversions 

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