Taming secondary benzylic cations in catalytic asymmetric SN1 reactions

Benzylic stereogenic centers are ubiquitous in natural products and pharmaceuticals. A potentially general, though challenging, approach toward their selective creation would be asymmetric unimolecular nucleophilic substitution (SN1) reactions that proceed through highly reactive benzylic cations. We now report a broadly applicable solution to this problem by identifying chiral counteranions that pair with secondary benzylic cations to engage in catalytic asymmetric C-C, C-O, and C-N bond-forming reactions with excellent enantioselectivity. The critical cationic intermediate can be accessed from different precursors via Lewis- or Brønsted acid catalysis. Key to our strategy is the use of only weakly basic, confined counteranions that are posited to prolong the lifetime of the carbocation, thereby avoiding nonproductive deprotonation pathways to the corresponding styrene.

Ruthenium-Catalyzed Reductive Coupling of Epoxides with Primary Alcohols via Hydrogen Transfer Catalysis

Herein, we report the ruthenium-catalyzed synthesis of β-alkylated secondary alcohols via the regioselective ring-opening of epoxides with feedstock primary alcohols. The reaction utilized alcohol as the carbon source and the terminal reductant. Kinetic and labeling experiments elucidate the hydrogen transfer catalysis that operates via tandem Markovnikov selective transfer hydrogenation of terminal epoxides and hydrogen transfer-mediated cross-coupling of the resulting alcohol with primary alcohol substrates. A broad scope (40 examples including drugs/natural product derivatives) and excellent regioselectivity for a variety of substrates were shown.

Continuous-Flow Direct Azidation of Alcohols and Peroxides for the Synthesis of Quinoxalinone, Benzooxazinone, and Triazole Derivatives

Continuous-flow reactors provide an ideal tool for the synthesis of potentially explosive but synthetically useful organic substances like organic azides due to their intrinsically small volume leading to very effective collision and highly controlled reaction conditions. Herein, we report the continuous-flow direct azidation of various alcohols by using TMSN₃ as an azide transfer reagent in the presence of Amberlyst-15 as a recyclable catalyst. Numerous 3-hydroxy-2-oxindoles effectively undergo azide transfer to afford azide-functionalized quaternary stereocenters in a continuous-flow module. Interestingly, peroxyoxindole undergoes sequential skeletal rearrangement to generate a carbocation followed by nucleophilic azidation to afford a library of substituted 2-azido-2H-benzo[b][1,4]oxazin-3(4H)-one derivatives under continuous flow. Furthermore, a continuous-flow Cu-catalyzed click reaction afforded triazole-functionalized deivatives. Next, reduction of azide in the presence of PPh₃ affords the amine derivatives in good yields. The continuous-flow application was extended further for the thermolytic skeletal rearrangement of 3-azide-2-oxindole for the synthesis of biologically important quinoxalin-2(1H)-ones without any reagents. Furthermore, this continuous-flow direct azidation reaction is scaled up to 6.144 g of azides with a turnover number of 9.24 under safer conditions.

Heterogeneous catalysis by tungsten-based heteropoly compounds

In this review, the recent works on heterogeneous catalytic applications of polyoxotungstates in liquid-phase organic reactions are reviewed.