Ketones organosilanes

The selective organosilane reduction of ketone functions can be effected in the presence of a number of other functional groups including epoxides,320,366 ketals,86,367 thioketals,368 other ketones,369,370 /1-lactams,371 alkynes,372 esters,79,80,83,84,87,320,373,374 a-bromides,76,80,83 amides80,83,84,86,276,320,375... 

Reduction to Alcohols. The organosilane-mediated reduction of ketones to secondary alcohols has been shown to occur under a wide variety of conditions. Only those reactions that are of high yield and of a more practical nature are mentioned here. As with aldehydes, ketones do not normally react spontaneously with organosilicon hydrides to form alcohols. The exceptional behavior of some organocobalt cluster complex carbonyl compounds was noted previously. Introduction of acids or other electrophilic species that are capable of coordination with the carbonyl oxygen enables reduction to occur by transfer of silyl hydride to the polarized carbonyl carbon (Eq. 2). This permits facile, chemoselective reduction of many ketones to alcohols. 

Certain catalysts promote the reduction of ketones with organosilanes. The reduction of acetophenone with Et3SiH is catalyzed by the diphosphine 65 and gives only a small amount of overreduction to ethylbenzene.377 Aryl alkyl enones and ynones are reduced to the corresponding alcohols with triethoxysilane and the titanium-based catalyst 66.378 Trichlorosilane reduces acetophenone in 90% yield with /V-formylpyrrolidinc catalysis.379... 

The organosilane reduction of ketones in the presence of alcohols provides an excellent route to unsymmetrical ethers. The reaction of cyclohexanone with ethanol and Et3SiH/TFA gives cyclohexyl ethyl ether in good yield.327,328 The... 

Reductive Animation. An excellent application of organosilane reductions is found in the reductive animation of ketones. This method is a useful alternative... 

Because the organosilane reduction of ketones passes through a positively charged intermediate via the complexation or protonation of the carbonyl oxygen, the presence of suitably placed C=C functions can lead to cyclizations with the hydride of the silane adding to the C=C group. This strategy applies to... 

The asymmetric organosilane reduction of prochiral ketones has been studied as an alternative to the asymmetric hydrogenation approach. A wide variety of chiral ligand systems in combination with transition metals can be employed for this purpose. The majority of these result in good to excellent chemical yields of the corresponding alcohols along with a trend for better ee results with aryl alkyl ketones than with prochiral dialkyl ketones. 

The in situ generation of CuH from organosilanes in the presence of either a BIPHEP (99) or a SEGPHOS (100) type ligand represents a general method for the asymmetric hydrosilylation of aryl alkyl ketones at low temperatures. 

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