Rhodium-Catalyzed Allylic Etherifications with Phenols and Alcohols

Rhodium-Catalyzed Allylic Etherifications with Phenols and Alcohols 

Transition metal-catalyzed allylic substitution with phenols and alcohols represents a fundamentally important cross-coupling reaction for the construction of allylic ethers, which are ubiquitous in a variety of biologically important molecules [44, 45]. While phenols have proven efficient nucleophiles for a variety of intermolecular allylic etherification reactions, alcohols have proven much more challenging nucleophiles, primarily due to their hard, more basic character. This is exemphfied with secondary and tertiary alcohols, and has undoubtedly limited the synthetic utihty of this transformation. 

Rhodium-catalyzed allylic etherification could also be extended to the more challenging tertiary alcohols (Eq. 7). Although preliminary attempts revealed that the alkylation of the allylic carbonate 51 was feasible, the reaction required increased catalyst loading (20 mol%), affording the allylic ether 52 in 67% yield (2° 1°=47 1). 

Examination of the stereospecificity of the etherification indicated that the reaction was subject to a dramatic halide effect (Tab. 10.9). Treatment of enantiomerically enriched allylic carbonate (R)-53 (94% ee) under optimized conditions furnished the allyl ether (R)-54 in 84% yield (2° 1° 99 1), although with poor enantiospecificity (41% cee  

In Hght of the hahde effects, the role of the copper afkoxide and the lithium halide, derived from the transmetaUation, was probed by preparing the copper afkoxide under salt-free conditions (Tab. 10.10) [24, 51, 52]. Initially, mesityl copper, from which the metal hahde salts are removed during preparation [53], was chosen to provide the copper(I) afkoxide. Interestingly, only a trace of product was observed in the absence of hthium 

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