Hydrogen peroxide enones

Conjugate addition of RN02 to enones. Primary nitroalkanes and a, (3-enones when activated by alumina form conjugate addition products that are oxidized in situ by alkaline hydrogen peroxide to 1,4-diketones. A similar reaction of nitromethane with a vinyl ketone provides 1,4,7-triketones. 

Direct phase-transfer catalysed epoxidation of electron-deficient alkenes, such as chalcones, cycloalk-2-enones and benzoquinones with hydrogen peroxide or r-butyl peroxide under basic conditions (Section 10.7) has been extended by the use of quininium and quinidinium catalysts to produce optically active oxiranes [1 — 16] the alkaloid bases are less efficient than their salts as catalysts [e.g. 8]. In addition to N-benzylquininium chloride, the binaphthyl ephedrinium salt (16 in Scheme 12.5) and the bis-cinchonidinium system (Scheme 12.12) have been used [12, 17]. Generally, the more rigid quininium systems are more effective than the ephedrinium salts. 

The product (6-2) from the reaction of thebaine with hydrogen peroxide can be viewed as the result from fromal 1,4 addition of two hydroxyl groups across the diene. The perspective depiction of thebaine reveals that the addition in fact occurs at the far more open face of the molecule. The product from this oxidation incorporates a new hydroxyl group at the 14(3 position and a hemiacetal at the 6 position. Treatment with a nuld acid leads to the hydrolysis of this last function and the formation of enone (6-3). 

Epoxidation of enones on treatment with basic hydrogen peroxide or /-butyl hydroperoxide, or with bleach, might be viewed as another form of trapping the initially produced anion.99 In this case the enol-ate, e.g. (425 Scheme 57), attacks the oxygen of the hydroperoxide to eject hydroxide and yield the epoxy ketone (426)." Finally, the initial anion can also be trapped by a sigmatropic rearrangement, as in... 

One topic where biocatalysis has not scored big successes (yet ) is the epoxidation reaction of alkenes. Against this background, the finding that poly-L-alanine catalyzes the epoxidation of enones such as chalcone, ArjCfOjCH H Ar2, raised plenty of interest (Julia, 1980). By employing hydrogen peroxide and NaOH in a biphasic water-toluene mixture together with poly-L-alanine, 2 K,3, S -epoxychalcone was ob-... 

In contrast with metal-complex catalyzed transformations [52], enantioselective organocatalyzed intermolecular conjugate additions of O-nudeophiles seem to be limited to peroxides such as hydrogen peroxide or tert-butyl hydroperoxide. In these reactions the primary addition product, a / -peroxy enolate, reacts further to yield an epoxide (Scheme 4.31). Consequently, reactions of this type are covered in Section 10.2 Epoxidation of Enones and Enoates . 

As discussed in Section 10.1, asymmetric epoxidation of C=C double bonds usually requires electrophilic oxygen donors such as dioxiranes or oxaziridinium ions. The oxidants typically used for enone epoxidation are, on the other hand, nucleophilic in nature. A prominent example is the well-known Weitz-Scheffer epoxidation using alkaline hydrogen peroxide or hydroperoxides in the presence of base. Asymmetric epoxidation of enones and enoates has been achieved both with metal-containing catalysts and with metal-free systems [52-55]. In the (metal-based) approaches of Enders [56, 57], Jackson [58, 59], and Shibasaki [60, 61] enantiomeric excesses > 90% have been achieved for a variety of substrate classes. In this field, however, the same is also true for metal-free catalysts. Chiral dioxiranes will be discussed in Section 10.2.1, peptide catalysts in Section 10.2.2, and phase-transfer catalysts in Section 10.2.3. 

Well-defined peptides of known sequence have been used to shed light on the mechanism of catalysis in the epoxidation of enones with hydrogen peroxide [91, 93-95]. The peptide sequences of the catalysts have been systematically varied and correlated with catalytic activity and selectivity. From the many variations investigated it was concluded (i) that the N-terminal region of the peptides harbors the catalytically active site, and that (ii) a helical conformation is required for the peptide catalysts to be active. The latter conclusion is supported both by the dependence of catalytic activity on chain-length and by IR investigations [91, 94]. NMR data that might aid further elucidation of catalyst structure, interaction with the substrate enones, etc., are, unfortunately, not yet available. 

In addition, solid-phase bound short-chain peptides have been recently found by the Ber-kessel group to act as highly efficient catalysts in asymmetric epoxidation reactions [17]. In the early 1980s, Julia and Colonna reported that chalcone 11 can be epoxidized asymmetrically by akaline hydrogen peroxide in the presence of poly-amino acids as catalysts [18, 19], The work by Berkessel et al. revealed that in fact as little as five I-Leu residues are sufficient for the epoxidation of the enone 11 with 96-98% ee (Scheme 8). 

Another example of the resin-capture-release technique which should see widespread applications in the future is the selenium-mediated functionalization of organic compounds. Polymer-supported selenium-derived reagents [34] are very versatile because a rich chemistry around the carbon-selenium bond has been established in solution and the difficulties arising from the odor and the toxicity of low-molecular weight selenium compounds can be avoided. Thus, reagent 26 (X = Cl) was first prepared by Michels, Kato and Heitz [35] and was employed in reactions with carbonyl compounds. This treatment yielded polymer-bound a-seleno intermediates, which were set free back into solution as enones from hydrogen peroxide induced elimination. Recently, new selenium-based functionalized polymers 26 (X = Br)-28 were developed, which have been utilized in syntheses according to Scheme 11 (refer also to Scheme 3) [36],... 

To immobilized poly-L-leucine (7.0 g) was added THF (50 mL), urea hydrogen peroxide (2.07 g, 22 mmol) and DBU (4.11 mL, 27.5 mmol). This mixture was stirred for 3-5 min, after which the enone (4.01 g, 18.4 mmol) in THF (10 mL) was added. After a further 3 h, additional urea hydrogen peroxide (1.06 g, 11.3 mmol) and DBU (2.5 mL, 16.1 mmol) were added. After 28 h, the reaction was filtered to remove the poly-L-leucine. The filtrate was added to saturated aqueous ammonium chloride solution and extracted with ethyl acetate. The combined organic layers were dried (MgS04) and concentrated in vacuo. The acid-sensitive... 

Epoxidation of enones, enals, a,unsaturated esters.1 Epoxidation of these substrates is generally effected with alkaline hydrogen peroxide, but can also be effected with this new reagent with high stereoselectivity. 

Chemical reactions on - and Z-isomers usually give the same type of product, though often with different stereochemistry. The two geometrical isomers may also react at very different rates. For example, the reaction of these conjugated - and Z-enones with alkaline hydrogen peroxide gives in each case an epoxide, but with different stereochemistry and at very different rates. 

In the 1980s, Julia and Colonna discovered that the Weitz-Scheffer epoxidation of enones such as chalcone (4, Scheme 2) by alkaline hydrogen peroxide is catalyzed in a highly enantioselective fashion by poly-amino acids such as poly-alanine or poly-leucine (Julia et al. 1980, 1982). The poly-amino acids used for the Julia-Colonna epoxidation are statistical mixtures, the maximum length distribution being around 20-25 mers (Roberts et al. 1997). The most fundamental question to be addressed refers to the minimal structural element (i.e. the minimal peptide length) required for catalytic activity and enantioselectiv-ity. To tackle this question, we have synthesized the whole series of L-leucine oligomers from 1- to 20-mer on a solid support (Berkessel... 

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