Ketones chiral tertiary amine catalyzed

Previous reviews have dealt with metal-catalyzed [93] and stoichiometric [94] oxidation of amines in a broad sense. This section will be limited to the selective oxidation of tertiary amines to N-oxides. Amine N-oxides are synthetically useful compounds [95, 96] and are frequently used as stoichiometric oxidants in osmium-[97-99] manganese- [100] and ruthenium-catalyzed [101,102] oxidations, as well as in other organic transformations [103-105]. Aliphatic tert-amine N-oxides are usefid surfactants [96] and are essential components in hair conditioners, shampoos, toothpaste, cosmetics, and so on [106]. Chiral N-oxides have been used in asymmetric catalysis involving metal-free catalytic transformations [107] as well as metal-catalyzed reactions where the N-oxide serves as a ligand [107, 108]. Chiral tertiary amine N-oxides were recently used as reagents in asymmetric epoxidation of a,(3-unsaturated ketones [109]. 

Apart from tertiary amines, the reaction may be catalyzed by phosphines, e.g. tri- -butylphosphine or by diethylaluminium iodide." When a chiral catalyst, such as quinuclidin-3-ol 8 is used in enantiomerically enriched form, an asymmetric Baylis-Hillman reaction is possible. In the reaction of ethyl vinyl ketone with an aromatic aldehyde in the presence of one enantiomer of a chiral 3-(hydroxybenzyl)-pyrrolizidine as base, the coupling product has been obtained in enantiomeric excess of up to 70%, e.g. 11 from 9 - -10 ... 

It was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter that alkaloids were among the first catalysts to be used for asymmetric hydrocyanation of aldehydes. More recent work by Tian and Deng has shown that the pseudo-enantiomeric alkaloid derivatives 5/6 and 7/8 catalyze the asymmetric addition of ethyl cyanoformate to aliphatic ketones (Scheme 6.6) [50]. It is believed that the catalytic cycle is initiated by the alkaloid tertiary amine reacting with ethyl cyanoformate to form a chiral cyanide/acylammonium ion pair, followed by addition of cyanide to the ketone and acylation of the resulting cyanoalkoxide. Potentially, the latter reaction step occurs with dynamic kinetic resolution of the cyano alkoxide intermediate... 

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