Titanium tetraisopropoxide enantioselective reactions

Yamamoto et al. have reported a chiral helical titanium catalyst, 10, prepared from a binaphthol-derived chiral tetraol and titanium tetraisopropoxide with azeotropic removal of 2-propanol [16] (Scheme 1.22, 1.23, Table 1.9). This is one of the few catalysts which promote the Diels-Alder reaction of a-unsubstituted aldehydes such as acrolein with high enantioselectivity. Acrolein reacts not only with cyclo-pentadiene but also 1,3-cyclohexadiene and l-methoxy-l,3-cyclohexadiene to afford cycloadducts in 96, 81, and 98% ee, respectively. Another noteworthy feature of the titanium catalyst 10 is that the enantioselectivity is not greatly influenced by reaction temperature (96% ee at... 

Allylic alcohols can be converted to epoxy-alcohols with tert-butylhydroperoxide on molecular sieves, or with peroxy acids. Epoxidation of allylic alcohols can also be done with high enantioselectivity. In the Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation,allylic alcohols are converted to optically active epoxides in better than 90% ee, by treatment with r-BuOOH, titanium tetraisopropoxide and optically active diethyl tartrate. The Ti(OCHMe2)4 and diethyl tartrate can be present in catalytic amounts (15-lOmol %) if molecular sieves are present. Polymer-supported catalysts have also been reported. Since both (-t-) and ( —) diethyl tartrate are readily available, and the reaction is stereospecific, either enantiomer of the product can be prepared. The method has been successful for a wide range of primary allylic alcohols, where the double bond is mono-, di-, tri-, and tetrasubstituted. This procedure, in which an optically active catalyst is used to induce asymmetry, has proved to be one of the most important methods of asymmetric synthesis, and has been used to prepare a large number of optically active natural products and other compounds. The mechanism of the Sharpless epoxidation is believed to involve attack on the substrate by a compound formed from the titanium alkoxide and the diethyl tartrate to produce a complex that also contains the substrate and the r-BuOOH. ... 

The epoxidation of allylic alcohols can also be effected by /-butyl hydroperoxide and titanium tetraisopropoxide. When enantiomerically pure tartrate ligands are included, the reaction is highly enantioselective. This reaction is called the Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation.55 Either the (+) or (—) tartrate ester can be used, so either enantiomer of the desired product can be obtained. 

Engler and colleagues256 demonstrated that the way in which catalyst 406 is prepared has a strong effect on the regioselectivity and enantioselectivity of quinone Diels-Alder reactions. The most effective catalyst was prepared from a 1 1 1 mixture of titanium tetrachloride, titanium tetraisopropoxide and chiral diol 416. The cycloadditions of 2-methoxy-l,4-benzoquinones such as 414 with simple dienes to give adducts like 415 proceeded with high yields and enantioselectivities of up to 80% ee using this catalytic system (equation 123). 

Although it was also Henbest who reported as early as 1965 the first asymmetric epoxidation by using a chiral peracid, without doubt, one of the methods of enantioselective synthesis most frequently used in the past few years has been the "asymmetric epoxidation" reported in 1980 by K.B. Sharpless [3] which meets almost all the requirements for being an "ideal" reaction. That is to say, complete stereofacial selectivities are achieved under catalytic conditions and working at the multigram scale. The method, which is summarised in Fig. 10.1, involves the titanium (IV)-catalysed epoxidation of allylic alcohols in the presence of tartaric esters as chiral ligands. The reagents for this asyimnetric epoxidation of primary allylic alcohols are L-(+)- or D-(-)-diethyl (DET) or diisopropyl (DIPT) tartrate,27 titanium tetraisopropoxide and water free solutions of fert-butyl hydroperoxide. The natural and unnatural diethyl tartrates, as well as titanium tetraisopropoxide are commercially available, and the required water-free solution of tert-bnty hydroperoxide is easily prepared from the commercially available isooctane solutions. 

Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation ° is an enantioselective epoxidation of an allylic alcohol with ferf-butyl hydroperoxide (f-BuOOH), titanium tetraisopropoxide [Ti(0-fPr)4] and (-b)- or (—)-diethyl tartrate [(-b)- or (—)-DET] to produce optically active epoxide from achiral allylic alcohol. The reaction is diastereoselective for a-substituted allylic alcohols. Formation of chiral epoxides is an important step in the synthesis of natural products because epoxides can be easily converted into diols and ethers. 

The SAE is arguably one of the most important reactions discovered in the last 30 years. The SAE converts the double bond of allyl alcohols into epoxides with high enantioselective purity using a titanium tetraisopropoxide catalyst, Ti(0-iPr)4, chiral additive, either L-(+)-diethyl tartrate [(+)-DET, 7.45] or D-(—)-diethyl tartrate [(—)-DET, 7.46], and tert-butyl peroxide (t-BuOOH, TBHP (f-butylhydroperoxide)) as the source of the oxidant in stoichiometric amounts (see section 1.5, references 28-30 of Chapter 1). 

Additions to Aldehydes. Alkylation of aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes with a combination of titanium tetraisopropoxide, Ti(0-/-Pr)4, and diethy Izinc, ZnEt2, in the presence of a catalytic amount of the bis-sulfonamide la leads to formation of (S)-l-phenyl-1-propanol 4 with high enantioselectivity (eq 2, Table 1). Use of the (R,7 )-l,2-(trifluoromethanesulfonamido)-cyclohexane lb [CAS 122833-60-7] allows for an equally selective reaction, but at exceptionally low catalyst loadings. In the case of aromatic aldehydes, these reactions are fairly rapid, requiring at most 2 hours to reach full conversion. 

Keck almost simultaneously reported two procedures using chiral titanium catalysts 6A and 6B for the enantioselective addition of allyltributyltin to aldehydes [11]. In the first procedure, the catalyst 6A is prepared from a 1 1 mixture of (R)-binaphthol and titanium tetraisopropoxide. The second procedure for the preparation of 6B, in contrast, requires a 2 1 mixture of BINOL, Ti(0 Pr)4, and a catalytic amount of CF3SO3H or CF3CO2H. Using 10 mol % of the catalyst 6A or 6B, a variety of aromatic, aliphatic, and a,P-unsaturated aldehydes are efficiently transformed into the corresponding optically active homoallylic alcohols with high enantioselectivity. An improved procedure was later published for the catalytic asymmetric allylation reactions using the 2 1 BINOL/Ti catalytic system [12]. 

Optically active propargylic alcohols can be prepared from terminal al-lynes and carbonyl compounds, via an in situ metalation with diethylzinc (or dimethylzinc), and excellent yields and enantioselectivities were obtained by using substoichiometric amounts of titanium tetraisopropoxide and readily available BINOL (Scheme 7.31). Aliphatic and a,(3-unsaturated aldehydes were also converted with success by performing the reaction in ether. ... 

Self-supported titanium complexes with linked bis-BINOL ligands were used as an alternative approach for the immobilisation of catalysts, as shown in enantioselective sulfide oxidation (see Section 7.2.2). The same ligands were used with success in asymmetric carbonyl ene reactions. The chiral metal-bridged polymer 76, derived from ent-lOa, titanium tetraisopropoxide and water (Scheme 7.45), catalysed the ene reaction between 68b and 71, to give R)-72 in 88% yield and 88% enantiomeric excess. The catalyst can be reused at least five times without affecting its efficiency. 

The first example of supported titanium-catalysed DA reaction was reported by Luis et al. in 1992 (Scheme 7.49). In this work, the authors described the preparation of several polymeric alcohols derived from Merrifield resin and their efficiency as ligand in titanium-catalysed cycloaddition between methacrolein and cyclopentadiene with yields between 83-99% and good exo selectivity. With the aim to evaluate the enantioselectivity of the reaction, catalyst 80 was then prepared almost quantitatively by double esterification of tartaric acid with chloromethylated polystyrene and a 1 1 mixture of titanium tetrachloride/titanium tetraisopropoxide. " Despite the good conversion and selectivity toward the exo-cycloadduct, only 3% enantiomeric excess was recorded, which was attributed to the very high reactivity of the system. Recycling of the catalyst was successfully performed by filtration from the reaction media and washing with dichloromethane, and catalyst 80 was reused seven times without significant loss of catalytic activity. 

The Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation of allylic alcohols (one of the reactions that helped K. Barry Sharpless earn his part of the 2001 Nobel Prize) offers a good example of an enantioselective technique that can be used to create either enantiomer of an epoxide product. This reaction uses a diester of tartaric acid, such as diethyl tartrate (DET) or diisopropyl tartrate (DIPT), as the source of chirality. The dialkyl tartrate coordinates with the titanium tetraisopropoxide [Ti(Oi-Pr)4] catalyst and t-butyl hydroperoxide (r-BuOOH) to make a chiral oxidizing agent. Since both enantiomers of tartaric acid are commercially available, and each enantiomer will direct the reaction to a different prochiral face of the alkene, both enantiomers of an epoxide can be synthesized. 

In 2004, Walsh and coworkers demonstrated that titanium complexes of tra s-l,2-bis(hydroxy-camphorsulfonylamino) cyclohexane were excellent catEilysts for asymmetric ZnPh additions to ketones. The reactions showed excellent enantioselectivities (Scheme 7.49) [79]. The reaction employs the readily available bis(sulfonamide) diol ligand (Scheme 7.49), a sub-stoichiometric amount of titanium tetraisopropoxide, and commercially available diphenylzinc. The reactions were clean, affording high yields of tertiary alcohol in less than 24 h at room temperature. This, in fact, was an improvement over the results reported previously by Dosa and Fu [78]. Additionally, there was no need for methanol as an additive. 

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