Rearrangement chromium oxidation

More than three decades ago, skeletal rearrangement processes using alkane or cycloalkane reactants were observed on platinum/charcoal catalysts (105) inasmuch as the charcoal support is inert, this can be taken as probably the first demonstration of the activity of metallic platinum as a catalyst for this type of reaction. At about the same time, similar types of catalytic conversions over chromium oxide catalysts were discovered (106, 107). Distinct from these reactions was the use of various types of acidic catalysts (including the well-known silica-alumina) for effecting skeletal reactions via carbonium ion mechanisms, and these led... 

Synthesis from Geraniol or Nerol. ( )-Citronellal can be obtained by vapor-phase rearrangement of geraniol or nerol in the presence of, e.g., a barium-containing copper-chromium oxide catalyst [63]. 

The copper-chromium oxide has two different active sites in a reduced state. The cuprous ions associated with a hydride and two anionic vacancies are the hydrogenation (HYD) sites. The chromium ions in the same environment are the sites where occur the isomerization (I) and the hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) reactions. The use of unsaturated ethers permits to confirm and to precise the nature and the role of the active sites. With the compounds which have the oxygen atom kept away of the catalyst s surface, the HYD activity is very low and the HDO/I ratio too, whereas, in the opposite case, these values increase. With the vinylic ethers, the saturated compound is the main product because the I and the HDO reactions proceed via a concerted mechanism with a common preliminar step and an allylic rearrangement which is impossible with geminate functions. 

In a similar fiashion to the Collins reagent, PCC will also induce oxidative rearrangement of tertiary allylic alcohols (Table S). PCC, and several other chromium oxidants, will also cause tertiary cyclopropyl alcohols to rearrange to give 3,y-unsaturated carbonyl compounds (equation 8). ... 

One is left to ponder initiation by other organochromium catalysts. Chromium allyls or 2,4-dimethylpentadienylchromium(II) could conceivably rearrange into p-l coordination upon addition of ethylene. However, chromocene must initiate the first chain in some other way, because the site must retain the ring. Thus, for chromocene catalysts, the initiation problem is similar to that described for chromium oxide. The diarene-chromium(O) and Cr(0)(CO)6 catalysts may also have this problem. Perhaps this is why these catalysts sometimes initiate polymerization more sluggishly than the chromium alkyls. However, there is also some evidence that the Cr(0) compounds can be oxidized by surface OH groups to leave a Cr-H group, which could also be considered an alkylated species. 

We had two possible routes in which alcohol 72 could be used (Scheme 8.19). Route A would involve rearrangement of tertiary alcohol 72 to enone 76. Deprotonation at C5 and generation of the enolate followed by exposure to an oxaziridine or other oxygen electrophile equivalents might directly afford the hydrated furan C-ring of phomactin A (see 82) via hydroxy enone 81. We had also hoped to make use of a chromium-mediated oxidative rearrangement of tertiary allylic alcohols. Unfortunately, treatment of 72 to PCC produced only unidentified baseline materials, thereby quickly eliminating this route. 

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