Ketone interesting/important

After phytochemical reduction was noted in the case of aldehydes and ketones, interest arose in the behavior of fermenting cells toward compounds containing several carbonyl groups per molecule, such as diketones and quinones. This class deserves special consideration because the simplest representative, diacetyl, as well as its products of reduction, acetylmethylcarbinol (3-hydroxybutanone) and 2,3-butylene glycol, are connected with the metabolism of numerous cells quinones also are biologically important. 

Allenic ketones are important materials due to their interesting utility as Michael acceptors, Diels-Alder dienophiles, and 1,3-dipoles in unusual [8+2] annulation and building blocks in furan. For the first time, oxidation of homopropar-gilic alcohols to 1,2-allenic ketones with t-BuOOH as oxidant and RuClj as catalyst... 

Aldehydes and ketones are important chromophoric groups, which play a central role in many different areas of chemistry. Formaldehyde is the prototype molecule for these kinds of compounds. Its electronically excited states have therefore been investigated extensively both experimentally and theoretically (see Refs. 63-65 and references cited therein). Acetone is the simplest aliphatic ketone. It is probably the best experimentally studied system of this group of important organic systems. The interpretation of its electronic spectrum has been and remains a subject of experimental interest [66-73]. In contrast to formaldehyde, acetone has been much less studied theoretically, undoubtedly due to the larger size of the molecule. To our knowledge there exist only two previous ab initio studies [74, 75]. Formaldehyde, on the other hand, is frequently used for testing new theoretical methods developed to treat excited states, because of its apparent simplicity and the numerous studies available. 

With Unsaturated Compounds. The reaction of unsaturated organic compounds with carbon monoxide and molecules containing an active hydrogen atom leads to a variety of interesting organic products. The hydroformylation reaction is the most important member of this class of reactions. When the hydroformylation reaction of ethylene takes place in an aqueous medium, diethyl ketone [96-22-0] is obtained as the principal product instead of propionaldehyde [123-38-6] (59). Ethylene, carbon monoxide, and water also yield propionic acid [79-09-4] under mild conditions (448—468 K and 3—7 MPa or 30—70 atm) using cobalt or rhodium catalysts containing bromide or iodide (60,61). 

The important role played by the quinicines (rubatoxanones, quina-toxines) in the syntheses of the dihydrocinchona alkaloids and the possibility that such substances might be used for the preparation of products approaching quinine in therapeutical interest, has led to the production of a large number of quinolyl ketones of various types and the corresponding secondary alcohols, and other derivatives obtainable from them, of which mention may be made of Rubtzov s syntheses of several isomerides of dihydroquinine. ... 

Interestingly enough, both protons at C-11 are exchanged quite readily in 12-keto steroids. In these compounds C-11 is the only possible enolization site where the axial (/3) proton is probably expelled first. During ketonization, the deuteron attack is more likely to occur from the less hindered a-side. By this sequence the proton which was originally at the lla-equato-rial position becomes axial and readily available for expulsion in the next enolization step. Thus, isomerization of the C-11 hydrogens may be an important reason for the facile exchange at this position. (For a more detailed discussion of the mechanism of enolization and ketonization reactions, see ref 114.)... 

Tripylborane is an interesting reagent which resembles thexylborane. One of the important uses of thexylborane lies in the synthesis of unsymmetrical thexyldialkylboranes which can then be used in the synthesis of unsymmetrical ketones. However, the reaction is only successful if the alkene used in the first hydroboration step is an internal alkene. Simple terminal alkenes such as 1-hexene react too rapidly with the initially formed thexylmonoalkylborane to allow the reaction to be stopped at that stage. Therefore, mixtures of products result (ref. 27). 

The complex Pd-(-)-sparteine was also used as catalyst in an important reaction. Two groups have simultaneously and independently reported a closely related aerobic oxidative kinetic resolution of secondary alcohols. The oxidation of secondary alcohols is one of the most common and well-studied reactions in chemistry. Although excellent catalytic enantioselective methods exist for a variety of oxidation processes, such as epoxidation, dihydroxy-lation, and aziridination, there are relatively few catalytic enantioselective examples of alcohol oxidation. The two research teams were interested in the metal-catalyzed aerobic oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes and ketones and became involved in extending the scopes of these oxidations to asymmetric catalysis. 

In this chapter, the definitions used by Perrin in his book on pA a prediction (which also includes a very convenient compilation of o values) will be used. One must be alert to the importance of the number of hydrogens directly attached to the carbonyl carbon several groups have pointed out that aldehydes and ketones give separate but parallel lines, with formaldehyde displaced by the same amount again. What this means is that given one equilibrium constant for an aldehyde (or ketone) one may estimate the equilibrium constant for other aldehydes (or ketones) from this value and p for the addition using a value from experiment, if available, or estimated if necessary. This assumes that there is no large difference in steric effects between the reference compound and the unknown of interest. 

Hydrogen Abstraction Photoexcited ketone intermolecular hydrogen atom abstraction reactions are an interesting area of research becanse of their importance in organic chemistry and dne to the complex reaction mechanisms that may be possible for these kinds of reactions. Time resolved absorption spectroscopy has typically been nsed to follow the kinetics of these reactions but these experiments do not reveal mnch abont the strnctnre of the reactive intermediates. " Time resolved resonance Raman spectroscopy can be used to examine the structure and properties of the reactive intermediates associated with these reactions. Here, we will briefly describe TR experiments reported by Balakrishnan and Umapathy to study hydrogen atom abstraction reactions in the fluoranil/isopropanol system as an example. 

Two interesting yeast carbonyl reductases, one from Candida magnoliae (CMCR) [33,54] and the other from Sporobolomyces salmonicolor (SSCR) [55], were found to catalyze the reduction of ethyl 4-chloro-3-oxobutanoate to give ethyl (5)-4-chloro-3-hydroxybutanoate, a useful chiral building block. In an effort to search for carbonyl reductases with anti-Prelog enantioselectivity, the activity and enantioselectivity of CMCR and SSCR have been evaluated toward the reduction of various ketones, including a- and /3-ketoesters, and their application potential in the synthesis of pharmaceutically important chiral alcohol intermediates have been explored [56-58]. 

The Schiff bases being derivatives of aldehydes or ketones and various amines have received considerable attention because of their interesting physical and chemical properties, involvement in biologically important reactions and widespread application of their metal complexes. Increasing interest in optically active Schiff bases is connected with the discovery at the beginning of the 1990s of the so-called Jacobsen catalysts used in several asymmetric reactions showing excellent enantioselectivity. 

Wu and Sun have presented a versatile procedure for the liquid-phase synthesis of 1,2, ,4-tctrahydro-/i-carbolines [77]. After successful esterification of the MeO-PEG-OH utilized with Fmoc-protected tryptophan, one-pot cyclocondensations with various ketones and aldehydes were performed under microwave irradiation (Scheme 7.68). The desired products were released from the soluble support in good yields and high purity. The interest in this particular scaffold is due to the fact that the l,2,3,4-tetrahydro-/f-carboline pharmacophore is known to be an important structural element in several natural alkaloids, and that the template possesses multiple sites for combinatorial modifications. The microwave-assisted liquid-phase protocol furnished purer products than homogeneous protocols and product isolation/ purification was certainly simplified. 

---