Osmium tetroxide ketones

Because osmium tetroxide is expensive, and its vapors are toxic, alternate methods have been explored for effecting vic-glycol formation. In the aliphatic series, olefins can be hydroxylated with hydrogen peroxide with the use of only a catalytic amount of osmium tetroxide. Anhydrous conditions are not necessary 30% hydrogen peroxide in acetone or acetone-ether is satisfactory. The intermediate osmate ester is presumably cleaved by peroxide to the glycol with regeneration of osmium tetroxide. When this reaction was tried on a A -steroid, the product isolated was the 20-ketone ... 

Selective hydroxylation with osmium tetroxide (one equivalent in ether-pyridine at 0 ) converts (27) to a solid mixture of stereoisomeric diols (28a) which can be converted to the corresponding secondary monotoluene-sulfonate (28b) by treatment with /7-toluenesulfonyl chloride in methylene dichloride-pyridine and then by pinacol rearrangement in tetrahydrofuran-lithium perchlorate -calcium carbonate into the unconjugated cyclohepte-none (29) in 41-48 % over-all yield from (27). Mild acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of the ketal-ketone (29) removes the ketal more drastic conditions by heating at 100° in 2 hydrochloric acid for 24 hr gives the conjugated diketone (30). 

Dehydration of cortisone (198) affords the diene 199. This is then converted to ketal 200. The selectivity is due to hindrance about both the 11- and 20-carbonyl groups. The shift of the double bond to the 5,6-position is characteristic of that particular enone. Treatment of protected diene 200 with osmium tetroxide results in selective oxidation of the conjugated double bond at C-16,17 to afford the cis-diol (201). Reduction of the ketone at C-ll (202) followed by hydrolysis of the ketal function gives the intermediate 203. Selenium dioxide has been... 

In Bettolo and co-workers approach to (+)-methyl trachyloban-18-oate (16), enone 13 was subjected to a photocycloaddition with 1,2-propadiene (1) to afford the [2 + 2]-cycloadduct 14 as a single product in 67% yield (Scheme 19.3) [5]. The addition proceeded exclusively from the /3-face. The resulting exocyclic olefin was eventually converted to a ketone using osmium tetroxide and NaI04 and taken on to 15, constituting a formal total synthesis of 16. 

Other methods for a-hydroxy ketone synthesis are addition of O2 to an enolate followed by reduction of the a-hydroperoxy ketone using triethyl phosphite 9 the molybdenum peroxide-pyridine-HMPA oxidation of enolates 10 photooxygenation of enol ethers followed by triphenylphosphine reduction 11 the epoxidation of trimethyl silyl enol ethers by peracid 1 - the oxidation of trimethylsilyl enol ethers by osmium tetroxide in N-methylmorpholine N-... 

Treatment of porphyrins with hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid, or with osmium tetroxide, results in formation of a dihydroxychlorin (44) under acidic conditions these compounds suffer pinacol rearrangement to give compounds, such as (45), known as gemini-ketones (67TL2185,69JCS(C)564). 

Exercise 16-37 An elegant modification of the two-step procedure to prepare ketones from alkenes by hydroxylation and oxidative cleavage of the diol formed uses a small amount of potassium permanganate (or osmium tetroxide, 0s04) as the catalyst and sodium periodate as the oxidizing agent ... 

Lithium aluminium hydride reduction of 235 followed by mesylation afforded 236. The latter was oxidized with osmium tetroxide and sodium metaperiodate to yield the cyclobutanone 237. Treatment of 237 with acid afforded in 48% yield the ketoacid (238), which was esterified with diazomethane to 239. The latter was converted to the ketal 240 by treatment with ethylene glycol and /7-toluenesulfonic acid. Compound 240 was reduced with lithium aluminium hydride to the alcohol 241. This alcohol had been synthesized previously by Nagata and co-workers (164) by an entirely different route. The azide 242 was prepared in 80% yield by mesylation of 241 and treatment of the product with sodium azide. Lithium aluminium hydride reduction of 242 gave the primary amine, which was converted to the urethane 243 by treatment with ethyl chloroformate. The ketal group of 243 was removed by acidic hydrolysis and the resulting ketone was nitro-sated with N204 and sodium acetate. Decomposition of the nitrosourethane with sodium ethoxide in refluxing ethanol afforded the ketone 244 in 65% yield. The latter had been also synthesized previously by Japanese chemists (165). The ketone 244 was converted to the ketal 246 and the latter to 247... 

---