Unsaturated aldehyde reduction

An oxazolidine was used to protect the carbonyl group in an a,/3-unsaturated aldehyde during reduction of the carbon-carbon double bond by H2/Raney Ni. It... 

Reduction of unsaturated carbonyl compounds to the saturated carbonyl is achieved readily and in high yield. Over palladium the reduction will come to a near halt except under vigorous conditions (73). If an aryl carbonyl compound, or a vinylogous aryl carbonyl, such as in cinnamaldehyde is employed, some reduction of the carbonyl may occur as well. Carbonyl reduction can be diminished or stopped completely by addition of small amounts of potassium acetate (i5) to palladium catalysts. Other effective inhibitors are ferrous salts, such asferroussulfate, at a level of about one atom of iron per atom of palladium. The ferrous salt can be simply added to the hydrogenation solution (94). Homogeneous catalysts are not very effective in hydrogenation of unsaturated aldehydes because of the tendencies of these catalysts to promote decarbonylation. 

Reduction of unsaturated aldehydes seems more influenced by the catalyst than is that of unsaturated ketones, probably because of the less hindered nature of the aldehydic function. A variety of special catalysts, such as unsupported (96), or supported (SJ) platinum-iron-zinc, plalinum-nickel-iron (47), platinum-cobalt (90), nickel-cobalt-iron (42-44), osmium (<55), rhenium heptoxide (74), or iridium-on-carbon (49), have been developed for selective hydrogenation of the carbonyl group in unsaturated aldehydes. None of these catalysts appears to reduce an a,/3-unsaturated ketonic carbonyl selectively. 

The widespread occurrence and biological significance of polyoxygenated carbocycles provided the impetus to apply RCM to sugar-derived dienes. Carbohydrate carbocyclization based on a sequence of Vasella reductive opening of iodo-substituted methyl glycosides [25], and RCM of the dienes available from the resulting unsaturated aldehydes, were used to prepare a series of natural compounds (Schemes 5-7). 

An interesting use of the diketone type of ketene dimer (34) is reduction and cleavage to B,y-unsaturated aldehyde (35),... 

Zinc borohydride has been found to effect very efficient reductive amination in the presence of silica. The amine and carbonyl compound are mixed with silica and the powder is then treated with a solution of Zn(BH4)2. Excellent yields are also obtained for unsaturated aldehydes and ketones.96... 

The enantioselective synthesis in Scheme 13.22 is based on stereoselective reduction of an a, (3-unsaturated aldehyde generated from (—)-(.V)-limonene (Step A). The reduction was done by Baker s yeast and was completely enantioselective. The diastereoselectivity was not complete, generating an 80 20 mixture, but the diastere-omeric alcohols were purified at this stage. After oxidation to the aldehyde, the remainder of the side chain was introduced by a Grignard addition. The ester function... 

Et2Zn also participates in the reductive coupling as a formal hydride source. Results for the Ni-catalyzed, Et2Zn-promoted homoallylation of carbonyl compounds with isoprene are summarized in Table 7 [30]. Et2Zn is so reactive that for the reaction with reactive aromatic aldehydes it causes direct ethylation of aldehydes, and the yields of homoallylation are diminished (runs 1 and 2). Unsaturated aldehydes seem to be subject to the Michael addition of Et2Zn. Accordingly, for the reaction with cinnamaldehyde, none of the expected homoallylation product is produced instead, the 1,4-addition product of Et2Zn, 3-phenylpentanal is produced exclusively (run 3). 

Head-to-head coupling ought to be more important in a, 0-unsaturated aldehydes, in which steric hindrance about the carbonyl carbon (head) is less than in the corresponding ketones. Indeed, jS, 0-dimethylacrolein (142) affords 143 (a dhmeso mixture), 144, and 145 in 24,67, and 9% yield, respectively, upon electrochemical reduction at pH 5.0 139). Tail-to-tail coupling does not occur ... 

In a recently published report by MacMillan s group [121] on the enantioselective synthesis of pyrroloindoline and furanoindoline natural products such as (-)-flustramine B 2-219 [122], enantiopure amines 2-215 were used as organocatalysts to promote a domino Michael addition/cyclization sequence (Scheme 2.51). As substrates, the substituted tryptamine 2-214 and a, 3-unsaturated aldehydes were used. Reaction of 2-214 and acrolein in the presence of 2-215 probably leads to the intermediate 2-216, which cyclizes to give the pyrroloindole moiety 2-217 with subsequent hydrolysis of the enamine moiety and reconstitution of the imidazolid-inone catalyst. After reduction of the aldehyde functionality in 2-217 with NaBH4 the flustramine precursor 2-218 was isolated in very good 90 % ee and 78 % yield. 

A useful and simple method for the one-pot preparation of highly functionalized, enanhomerically pure cyclopentanes from readily accessible carbohydrate precursors has been designed by Chiara and coworkers [73]. The procedure depends on a samarium(II) iodide-promoted reductive dealkoxyhalogenahon of 6-desoxy-6-iodo-hexopyranosides such as 7-160 to produce a 6,e-unsaturated aldehyde which, after reductive cyclization, is trapped by an added electrophile to furnish the final product. In the presence of acetic anhydride, the four products 7-161 to 7-164 were obtained from 7-160. 

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