Reducing agents samarium diiodide

The blue samarium diiodide solutions are stable indefinitely in the absence of water and oxygen, and Sml and Ybl2 solutions have been employed as reducing agents in organic synthesis. 

The Julia olefination involves the addition of a sulfonyl-stabilized carbanion to a carbonyl compound, followed by elimination to form an alkene.277 In the initial versions of the reaction, the elimination was done under reductive conditions. More recently, a modified version that avoids this step was developed. The former version is sometimes referred to as the Julia-Lythgoe olefination, whereas the latter is called the Julia-Kocienski olefination. In the reductive variant, the adduct is usually acylated and then treated with a reducing agent, such as sodium amalgam or samarium diiodide.278... 

Another useful reagent for reduction of a-acetoxyketones and similar compounds is samarium diiodide.233 Sml2 is a strong one-electron reducing agent, and it is believed that the reductive elimination occurs after a net two-electron reduction of the carbonyl group. 

Samarium diiodide is another powerful one-electron reducing agent that can effect carbon-carbon bond formation under appropriate conditions.257 Aromatic aldehydes and aliphatic aldehydes and ketones undergo pinacol-type coupling with Sml2 or SmBr2. 

Sodium ascorbate and samarium diiodide have also been used as reducing agents. 

Ni(0) catalyst. A radical 5-exo cyclization to the potentially zinc or nickel-complexed ketone provides an alkoxyl radical that combines with the co-produced Ni(I) species. A transmetalation to a zinc alkoxide regenerates the catalyst and forms the zinc cyclopentoxide, from which products 79 are liberated on hydrolysis. A bimetallic Cu(I)-Mn(II) system provided similar results (see Sect. 8.4). Analogous samarium diiodide-mediated reactions require in contrast stoichiometric amounts of the reducing agent and are less diastereoselective [26, 27],... 

Although samarium diiodide was first reported in 1906, for many years it was only of interest for inorganic materials science. Its application in organic chemistry had never been studied. We recognised that samarium diiodide had the potential to act as a reducing agent (a one-electron donor) since Sm3+ is the... 

A more versatile reducing agent is samarium diiodide, which promotes chemoselective cyclizations of functionalized keto aldehydes in a stereodefined manner to form 2,3-dihydrocyclopentane carboxylate derivatives in good yields and with diastereoselectivities of up to 200 1 (equation 38)7 The reaction proceeds via selective one-electron reduction of the aldehyde component and subsequent nucleophilic attack on the ketone moiety. Stereochemical control is established by chelation of the developing diol (19) with Sm " " which thereby selectively furnishes cis diols (equation 39). The stereoselective M/-cyclization of 1,5-diketones to cis cyclopentane-1,2-diols using TiCU/Zn has been used to prepare stereodefined sterically hindered acyclic 1,2-diols when a removable heteroatom, such as sulfur or selenium, is included in the linking chain (equation 40). 

The most employed reducing agents in the old tellurium chemistry were alkali sulphites or hydrogen sulphites, methyhnagnesium iodide and sodium sulphide hydrate. The last reagent is still used, together with the more recently introduced sodium borohydride, TUDO, hydrazine, samarium diiodide and sodium ascorbate. ... 

Other reducing agents, such as sodium/ammonia or diphenylstannane are unsatisfactory55. Since stereoselective reductions of this type have been a problem in the synthesis of milbemycins and avermectins57. the utility of the radical anion reduction via samarium diiodide/proton donor remains to be appreciated generally. For routine applications on a multigram scale, the price of samarium iodide is currently too high (1 mol of samarium costs ca. 25 times more than 1 mol of lithium). 

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