CONVERSION OF EPOXIDES AND ALCOHOLS INTO VALUABLE ORGANIC PRODUCTS BY IRIDIUM CATALYZED HYDROGEN TRANSFER REACTIONS
Project no. 22946 · Status: Kapanmış · 2021
Summary
<p>Styrene oxide is an important compound used extensively in organic synthesis. In addition, the selective opening of the epoxide ring to form one or two isomeric products is very important in terms of medicinal chemistry. It is a very promising industrial process for the synthesis of alcohols. Methods such as hydrogenation, catalytic hydrogenation, and hydrosilylation used for opening the epoxide ring have many disadvantages. In recent years, the transfer hydrogenation (TH) method has emerged as an alternative to traditional hydrogenation reactions performed using H2 gas. TH can be defined as the transfer of hydrogen obtained from a hydrogen source that is not H2 gas (usually alcohols or formic acid) to the molecule to be reduced. Despite the known advantages of transfer hydrogenation, there is no study in the literature on the opening of the epoxide ring by the transfer hydrogenation method. Recently, hydrogen autotransfer (HO) also known as hydrogen borrowing (Eng. “borrowing hydrogen”) method has emerged as a powerful approach combining transfer hydrogenation with one or more intermediate reactions to synthesize more complex molecules without the need for laborious separation and purification processes. In the presented project, styrene oxide derivatives and primary alcohols will be used as catalysts to synthesize α-alkylated ketones, an important class of compounds for organic and pharmaceutical chemistry. Up to now, there has been no study in the literature on the synthesis of targeted α-alkylated ketone compounds by single-step alkylation of epoxide derivatives with primary alcohols.</p>