Functional groups oxygen containing

This chapter is a transitional one It ties together much of the material encountered earlier and sets the stage for our study of other oxygen containing functional groups m the chapters that follow... 

The next several chapters deal with the chemistry of various oxygen-containing functional groups. The interplay of these important classes of compounds—alcohols, ethers, aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids, and derivatives of carboxylic acids— is fundfflnental to organic chemistry and biochemistry. 

Upon removal of the auxiliary, an enantioenriched product could be obtained. The application of chiral auxiliary-based methods to Simmons-Smith cyclopropanation not only provided a useful synthetic strategy, but it also served to substantiate earlier mechanistic hypotheses regarding the directing influence of oxygen-containing functional groups on the zinc reagent [6dj. 

Table 1 Range of Di.stribution of Oxygen-Containing Functional Groups in Humic and Fulvic Acids Isolated from Soils of Widely Different Climatic Zones (in mEq/lOO g)...

Alcohols are at a fairly low oxidation level compared to other oxygen-containing functional groups and consequently are readily prepared by reduction. Large numbers of reductive methods have been reported for the preparation of alcohols. Carboxylic acids and esters react vigorously with lithium aluminum hydride (LAH) to produce primary alcohols. Carboxylic acids, but not esters, are also reduced easily by borane, which is die only reducing agent diat reacts faster widi carboxylic acids dian widi esters or odier acid derivatives. 

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