Vanadium catalysts asymmetric epoxidation

Another interesting asymmetric epoxidation technique using metal catalysis involves the vanadium complexes of A-hydroxy-[2.2]paracyclophane-4-carboxylic amides (e.g., 19), which serve as catalysts for the epoxidation of allylic alcohols with f-butyl hydroperoxide as... 

Hie first of Sharpless s reactions is an oxidation of alkenes by asymmetric epoxidation. You met vanadium as a transition-metal catalyst for epoxidation with r-butyl hydroperoxide in Chapter 33, and this new reaction makes use of titanium, as titanium tetraisopropoxide, Ti(OiPr)4, to do the same thing. Sharpless surmised that, by adding a chiral ligand to the titanium catalyst, he might be able to make the reaction asymmetric. The ligand that works best is diethyl tartrate, and the reaction shown below is just one of many that demonstrate that this is a remarkably good reaction. 

The asymmetric epoxidation of homoallylic alcohols has continued to be a problematic area. A potential solution has recently been published <07JA286 07T6075>. The use of bis-hydroxamic acid 1 as a chiral ligand for a vanadium catalyst has provided both excellent yields and enantioselectivity. This method works well with both cis- and trans-alkenes. 

Homoallylic alcohols can be asymmetrically epoxidized using a chiral vanadium catalyst equipped with the hydroxaraic acid ligand 45, as exemplified in Yamamoto s concise synthesis... 

The hrst of Sharpless s reactions is an oxidation of alkenes by asymmetric epoxidation. You met vanadium as a transition-metal catalyst for epoxidation with f-butyl hydroperoxide in Chapter 33,... 

Katsuki-Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation. Since its introduction in 1980 [10], the Katsuki-Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation (AE) reaction of allylic alcohols has been one of the most popular methods in asymmetric synthesis ([11-14]). In this work, the metal-catalyzed epoxidation of allylic alcohols described in the previous section was rendered asymmetric by switching from vanadium catalysts to titanium ones and by the addition of various tartrate esters as chiral ligands. Although subject to some technical improvements (most notably the addition of molecular sieves, which allowed the use of catalytic amounts of the titanium-tartrate complex), this recipe has persisted to this writing. 

Epoxidations. Grafting tantalum onto silica to form a useful catalyst for the Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation of allyl alcohols is contrary to the ineffective titanium species on a similar support. Vanadium-complexed chiral hydroxamic... 

Other metal-based epoxidation catalysts have been explored to overcome some of the hmitations of the Sharpless procedure. One drawback with the Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation is the slightly lower ees often obtained when using cis-olefin substrates. The group of Yamamoto have achieved highly enantioselective epoxidations of ds-alkenes using vanadium(V) oxytriisopropoxide in the presence of C2-symmetric bishydroxamic acid ligands such as (4.23). In contrast to the Sharpless procedure this process is not hampered by the presence of air or... 

The asymmetric synthesis of florfenicol (104) from the oxidation of 4-methylthiobenzaldehyde by TBHP in the presence of Yamamoto s vanadium catalyst resulted in 37% overall yield intermediate formation of aUyUc alcohol (105) and its epoxidation to (25, 35)-epoxide (106) in 75% yield and 90% ee was involved. TBHP oxidation of jS-dicarbonyls in the presence of vanadyl acetylacetonate in benzene involved the activated methylene group in formation of intermediate trioxo derivatives and is accompanied by decomposition of the carbon skeleton... 

SCHEME 34.15. Asymmetric epoxidation of allyl alcohols 54 leading to enantioenriched epoxides 56 mediated by vanadium(V) catalysts with a chiral hydroxamic acid ligand 55 and t-butyl hydroperoxide as a terminal oxidant. 

The epoxidation of electron-deficient alkenes with either vanadium or titanium catalysts give syw-epoxides347 a free hydroxy group and a ketone or ester function are necessary for the reaction to take place, and a modest level of asymmetric induction can be achieved with y-hydroxy enone substrates and chiral titanium catalysts348. 

Enantioselective vanadium and niobium catalysts provide chemists with new and powerful tools for the efficient preparation of optically active molecules. Over the past few decades, the use of vanadium and niobium catalysts has been extended to a variety of different and complementaiy asymmetric reactions. These reactions include cyanide additions, oxidative coupling of 2-naphthols, Friedel-Crafts-type reactions, pinacol couplings, Diels-Alder reactions, Mannich-type reactions, desymmetrisation of epoxides and aziridines, hydroaminations, hydroaminoalkylations, sulfoxida-tions, epoxidations, and oxidation of a-hydroxy carbo) lates Thus, their major applications are in Lewis acid-based chemistiy and redox chemistry. In particular, vanadium is attractive as a metal catalyst in organic synthesis because of its natural abundance as well as its relatively low toxicity and moisture sensitivity compared with other metals. The fact that vanadium is present in nature in equal abundance to zinc (albeit in a more widely distributed form and more difficult to access) is not widely appreciated. Inspired by the activation of substrates in nature [e.g. bromoperoxidase. 

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