Regiochemical control of the ring opening of 1,2-Epoxides by means of chelating processes. 11. Ring opening reactions of aliphatic mono- and difunctionalized cis and trans 2,3- and 3,4-Epoxy Esters

The regiochemical outcome of the ring opening of 1,2-epoxides through chelation processes assisted by metal ions, was verified in the azidolysis of simple aliphatic cis and trans 2,3- and 3,4-epoxy esters and in the corresponding derivatives bearing an ether functionality (OBn) in an allylic relationship to the oxirane ring. The results indicate that the behavior of these epoxides is influenced both by the opening conditions (standard or metal-assisted) and the promoting metal salt [LiClO₄ or Mg(ClO₄)₂].     

An efficient stereoselective synthesis of enantiomerically pure aziridine derivatives of allyl β-d-glucopyranosides asymmetrically induced by a glucide moiety

The enantiomerically pure title aziridines were obtained by regioselective azidolysis of the 2′,3′-epoxy derivatives of allyl 3,4,6-tri-O-benzyl-β-d-glucopyranosides, followed by cyclization of the corresponding azido alcohols by means of the PPh₃ protocol. Enantiomerically pure starting epoxides were prepared by epoxidation of the corresponding allyl 3,4,6-tri-O-benzyl-β-d-glucopyranosides asymmetrically induced by a glucide moiety.     

Acid-catalyzed rearrangement of aryl-substituted homobenzoquinone epoxides

The BF3-catalyzed reactions of diphenyl-substituted and endo-monophenyl-substituted homobenzoquinone epoxides proceeded through a regioselective oxirane ring opening followed by participation of a pi-aryl transannular cyclization to give the tricyclic diketo alcohols. The conformationally semirigid ethano-bridged diphenyl-substituted homologues also provided similar diketo alcohols and the subsequent ring-expanded cycloheptenedione (via a subsequent 1,2-acyl migration associated with cyclopropane ring opening), depending on the methyl-substitution pattern of the quinone frame. However, the exo-monophenyl-substituted and the rigid biphenyl-2,2'-diyl-substituted homobenzoquinone epoxides essentially remained unchanged.     

Nucleophilic Difluoromethylation of Epoxides with PhSO(NTBS)CF2H by a Preorganization Strategy

Unlike the facile synthesis of β‐monofluoromethyl alcohols by nucleophilic monofluoromethylation of epoxides, the synthesis of β‐difluoromethyl alcohols by nucleophilic difluoromethylation of epoxides still remains a challenge. Herein, studies on tackling this problem with PhSO(NTBS)CF₂H ( 2 ; TBS=tert‐butyldimethylsilyl) are reported. The preorganization of 2 and epoxides with BF₃ ? Et₂O was found to be crucial for the reaction. The reaction shows excellent regioselectivity and has a broad substrate scope. The facile transformation of the ring‐opened products to β‐difluoromethyl, γ‐difluoromethyl, and β‐difluoromethylenyl alcohols demonstrates the synthetic utility of the reaction.     

Nucleophilic Reactivity of Ethers Against Terminal Epoxides in the Presence of BF3: A Mechanistic Study

In the presence of BF₃, a series of symmetrical and unsymmetrical ethers reacted with epichlorohydrin and 2‐[(benzyloxy)methyl]oxirane, two terminal epoxides, to afford 1‐alkoxy‐3‐chloropropan‐2‐ol and 1‐alkoxy‐3‐(benzyloxy)propan‐2‐ol. The cleavage of unsymmetrical ethers occurred via an S_N2 or S_N1 mechanism. Secondary epoxides did not give similar ring‐opening products.     

An unexpected chelation-controlled Yb(OTf)(3)-catalyzed aminolysis and azidolysis of cyclitol epoxides

A chelation-controlled aminolysis and azidolysis of cyclitol epoxides with Yb(OTf)(3) has been disclosed. The presence of a free OH group able to direct the coordination with the lanthanide seems essential for an efficient regiocontrol of the process.     

A new strategy to improve the predictive ability of the local lazy regression and its application to the QSAR study of melanin‐concentrating hormone receptor 1 antagonists

In the quantitative structure‐activity relationship (QSAR) study, local lazy regression (LLR) can predict the activity of a query molecule by using the information of its local neighborhood without need to produce QSAR models a priori. When a prediction is required for a query compound, a set of local models including different number of nearest neighbors are identified. The leave‐one‐out cross‐validation (LOO‐CV) procedure is usually used to assess the prediction ability of each model, and the model giving the lowest LOO‐CV error or highest LOO‐CV correlation coefficient is chosen as the best model. However, it has been proved that the good statistical value from LOO cross‐validation appears to be the necessary, but not the sufficient condition for the model to have a high predictive power. In this work, a new strategy is proposed to improve the predictive ability of LLR models and to access the accuracy of a query prediction. The bandwidth of k neighbor value for LLR is optimized by considering the predictive ability of local models using an external validation set. This approach was applied to the QSAR study of a series of thienopyrimidinone antagonists of melanin‐concentrating hormone receptor 1. The obtained results from the new strategy shows evident improvement compared with the commonly used LOO‐CV LLR methods and the traditional global linear model. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010     

Near‐infrared spectroscopy for the quantitative determination of mass transfer and water absorption kinetics by a polymer solution

This article reports a new method to quantify the water absorption kinetics and the mass transfer in a polymer solution by using near‐infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and partial least‐squares (PLS) models, while it is exposed to a humid atmosphere. Polymer solutions used in this study were made with highly polar solvents exhibiting both a high affinity for water and a low volatility such as dimethylformamide, dimethylacetamide, and N‐methylpyrrolidone. Poly(ethersulfone) and poly(etherimide) were chosen as polymer models as the method could provide useful information for coating process and membrane fabrication monitoring. Whereas gravimetric kinetics yield data on the overall mass transfer, including both water absorption and solvent evaporation, in situ analyses using NIR can quantify separately the solvent and nonsolvent concentration change in the polymer solution. Quantitative models were developed using PLS regression to predict the local water, polymer, and solvent weight fractions in the polymer solution. The method was proved to be suitable for the different studied systems and allowed to infer mass transfers until the onset of the phase separation process. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 48: 1960–1969, 2010     

Stereospecific radical polymerization of N‐tert‐butoxycarbonylacrylamide in the presence of fluorinated alcohols

Radical polymerization of N‐tert‐butoxycarbonylacrylamide (NBocAAm) in toluene at low temperatures in the presence of the fluorinated alcohols, 2,2,2‐trifluoroethanol, 1,1,1,3,3,3‐hexafluoro‐2‐propanol, and nonafluoro‐tert‐butanol, afforded atactic, heterotactic, and syndiotactic polymers, respectively. NMR analysis revealed that the fluorinated alcohols formed hydrogen bonding‐assisted complexes with NBocAAm, with different structures. The difference in the structures of the complexes was responsible for the differences in the induced stereospecificities. Based on the structures of the complexes between NBocAAm and the fluorinated alcohols, mechanisms for the three kinds of stereospecific radical polymerizations are proposed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2010     

Carbon-13 NMR spectra of some epoxides derived from dicyclopentadiene

The ¹³C NMR spectra of a series of epoxides derived from endo- and exo-dicyclopentadiene and their partially hydrogenated compounds were determined to examine the substituent effects arising from the introduction of the oxirane ring in comparison with those found in other ring systems. The ¹³C signals of some epoxides were assigned by using lanthanide shift reagents. Characteristic substituent effects exerted by an oxirane ring were demonstrated. Marked steric γ-effects of ?8—13 ppm were observed at the bridge carbon signal in the bicyclo[2.2.1]heptane skeleton. Differences were found in the substituent effects between endo- and exo-dicyclopentadiene epoxides, and have been discussed in relation to the molecular geometry.     

A new strategy of outlier detection for QSAR/QSPR

The crucial step of building a high performance QSAR/QSPR model is the detection of outliers in the model. Detecting outliers in a multivariate point cloud is not trivial, especially when several outliers coexist in the model. The classical identification methods do not always identify them, because they are based on the sample mean and covariance matrix influenced by the outliers. Moreover, existing methods only lay stress on some type of outliers but not all the outliers. To avoid these problems and detect all kinds of outliers simultaneously, we provide a new strategy based on Monte‐Carlo cross‐validation, which was termed as the MC method. The MC method inherently provides a feasible way to detect different kinds of outliers by establishment of many cross‐predictive models. With the help of the distribution of predictive residuals such obtained, it seems to be able to reduce the risk caused by the masking effect. In addition, a new display is proposed, in which the absolute values of mean value of predictive residuals are plotted versus standard deviations of predictive residuals. The plot divides the data into normal samples, y direction outliers and X direction outliers. Several examples are used to demonstrate the detection ability of MC method through the comparison of different diagnostic methods. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010     

“Kick‐Starting” oxetane photopolymerizations

In the presence of small amounts of 2,2‐dialkyl‐, 2,2,3‐trialkyl‐, or 2,2,3,3‐tetraalkyl substituted epoxides such as isobutylene oxide, 1,2‐limonene oxide, and 2,2,3,3,‐tetramethyl oxirane, the photoinitiated cationic ring‐opening polymerizations of 3,3‐disubstituted oxetanes are dramatically accelerated. The acceleration affect was attributed to an increase in the rate of the initiation step of these latter monomers. Both mono‐ and disubstituted oxetane monomers are similarly accelerated by the above‐mentioned epoxides to give crosslinked network polymers. The potential for the use of such “kick‐started” systems in applications such as coatings, adhesives, printing inks, dental composites and in three‐dimensional imaging is discussed. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2014 , 52, 2934–2946     

Well‐defined epoxide‐containing styrenic polymers and their functionalization with alcohols

Polymers containing electrophilic moieties, such as activated esters, epoxides, and alkyl halides, can be readily modified with a variety of nucleophiles to produce useful functional materials. The modification of epoxide‐containing polymers with amines and other strong nucleophiles is well‐documented, but there are no reports on the modification of such polymers with alcohols. Using phenyloxirane and glycidyl butyrate as low molecular weight model compounds, it was determined that the acid‐catalyzed ring‐opening of aryl‐substituted epoxides by alcohols to form β‐hydroxy ether products was significantly more efficient than that of alkyl‐substituted epoxides. An aryl epoxide‐type styrenic monomer, 4‐vinylphenyloxirane (4VPO), was synthesized in high yield using an improved procedure and then polymerized in a controlled manner under reversible addition‐fragmentation chain‐transfer (RAFT) polymerization conditions. A successful chain extension with styrene proved the high degree of chain‐end functionalization of the poly4VPO‐based macro chain transfer agent. Poly4VPO was modified with a library of alcohols and phenols, some of which contained reactive functionalities, e.g., azide, alkyne, allyl, etc., using either CBr₄ (in PhCN at 90 °C for 2–3 days) or BF₃ (in CH₂Cl₂ at ambient temperature over 30 min) as the catalyst. The resulting β‐hydroxy ether‐functionalized homopolymers were characterized using size exclusion chromatography, ¹H NMR and IR spectroscopy, and thermal gravimetric analysis. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2016 , 54, 1132–1144     

Hydrogénolyse en phase liquide sur Pd/C des époxydes du carvomenthène et du limonène

Hydrogenolysis over Pd/C of cis and trans epoxides of carvomenthene and limonene give a mixture of hydrocarbons, secondary and tertiary alcohols, and ketones in proportions dependent upon the nature of the starting material. In the limonene epoxides, the extracyclic double bond plays an important role in the opening of the oxirane ring through a common unsaturated tertiary alcohol intermediate by double bond migration, hydrogenation of which leads to the products. For the carvomenthene epoxides the results are similar to those found in the 4-t-butyl series with competition between cis addition and trans addition of hydrogen. The presence of the isopropenyl group leads to slower reaction rates in comparison with t-butyl analogues.     

Thermal Reactions of Epoxyenones and Epoxydienes in the Ionone Series

On flash vaccum thermolysis at temperatures between 390 and 585°, the epoxyenones 1 – 9 and the epoxydienes 10 – 12 undergo various types of reactions involving C? C and/or C? O bond cleavage in the oxirane ring. Thus, the compounds 1 , 4 – 9 , 11 , and 12 were transformed to the divinyl ethers 13 , 20 , 21 , 24 , 25 , 29 , and 38 by a reversible [1,5] homosigmatropic H-shift. On thermolysis of the epoxides 1 – 12 , several products formed via carbonyl-ylide intermediates were also isolated. The extent of the formation of ylide products is clearly related to the conjugating ability of the functional groups neighboring the oxirane. Thus, the epoxides 3 , 5 , and 7 – 10 , bearing a C(3)?C(4) bond, a 5-oxo function, a 3,4-epoxy or a 3,4-methano group, preferentially underwent reactions via a carbonyl-ylide intermediate. As a further reaction pathway, the epoxides 1 – 12 undergo cleavage of the C–O bonds of the oxirane, which, however, is presumably an acid-catalyzed rather than a thermal reaction.     

Synthetic Reactions Using Low‐valent Titanium Reagents Derived from Ti(OR)4 or CpTiX3 (X = O‐i‐Pr or Cl) in the Presence of Me3SiCl and Mg

In the presence of Me₃SiCl, Ti(OR)₄ or CpTiX₃ (X = O‐i‐Pr or Cl) is reduced by Mg powder in THF to gradually generate a specific low‐valent titanium (LVT) species that mediates several synthetic reactions. The LVT‐catalyzed C–O bond‐cleaving reactions of allyl and propargyl ethers and esters generate parent alcohols and carboxylic acids, respectively. O‐allyl and propargyl carbamates are also readily deprotected by the LVT to afford parent amines. In addition, the respective reductive N–S or O–S bond cleavage of sulfonamides or sulfonyl esters mediated by the LVT was developed as a novel facile deprotection method. The reagent catalyzes intra‐ and intermolecular alkyne or alkyne/nitrile cycloaddition to produce substituted benzenes and pyridines, while epoxides and oxetanes are reduced to alcohols via an LVT‐mediated homolytic ring opening. The McMurry coupling of aryl aldehydes and ketones proceeds with the LVT under homogeneous and mild reaction conditions and is effective for the polymerization of aromatic dialdehydes, generating conjugated polymers. Finally, imino‐pinacol coupling of imines is mediated by the LVT to provide 1,2‐diamines.     

用Sharpless不对称双羟化反应合成手性β-氨基醇

以烯烃为原料合成了一组对映体纯的β-氨基醇．在手性配体1,4-双(9-O-奎宁)-2,3-二氮杂萘[(QN)₂PHAL]存在下, 通过烯烃的Sharpless不对称双羟化、环化、亲核开环和催化氢化等步骤方便地合成了手性β-氨基醇. 从环氧化物到氨基醇的总产率为89%～94%, β-叠氮醇和β-氨基醇的光学纯度高达90%～99% ee. 同时考察了影响环氧化物开环的各种因素．     

Synthesis of di‐nitrogen Schiff base complexes of methyltrioxorhenium(VII) and their application in epoxidation with aqueous hydrogen peroxide as oxidant

Several di‐nitrogen Schiff bases were synthesized through the condensation of 2‐pyridinecarboxaldehyde with primary amines. The Schiff bases as ligands coordinated with methyltrioxorhenium (MTO) smoothly to afford the correspondent complexes which were characterized by IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, MS and elemental analysis. One of the complexes was analyzed by X‐ray crystallography as well. The results revealed that the complexes display distorted octahedral geometry in the solid state with a trans‐position of Schiff base. Catalytic results indicated that the complexes as catalysts increased the selectivity of epoxides remarkably compared with MTO in the epoxidation of alkenes with 30% hydrogen peroxide as oxidant and the increasing rate depended on the structure of the Schiff base ligands of the complexes. The results indicated that the stronger the donating ability of the ligand, the higher selectivity of epoxides the complex gave in the epoxidation of alkenes with 30% hydrogen peroxide as oxidant. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Remarkably Accelerated Regioselective Hydrogenolysis of Terminal Epoxides in the Presence of CoC12 or NiSO4

The rate of atmospheric pressure hydrogenolysis of terminal epoxides over palladium-charcoal to the corresponding methyl alcohols could be remarkably accelerated by introduction of CoC12 or NiSO4.