264258-73-3Relevant articles and documents
Catalytic and stoichiometric Lewis acid participation in aldehyde ene cyclisations
Braddock, D. Christopher,Brown, John M.
, p. 741 - 756 (2000)
Racemic 2-isopropyl-2-methylhex-5-enal has been synthesised in order to probe ene cyclisations leading to menthol analogues. The objective was first to discover catalytic conditions for preferential cyclisation to the menthol rather than the neomenthol series and then to develop (dynamic) kinetic resolution procedures which afforded a single enantiomer of product. It was found that catalytic quantities of both Me2AlCl and a bulky methyl-aluminium bis(phenoxide) reagent gave products attributed to a Meerwein-Pondorff-Verley reaction. In this the aldehyde is reduced to a primary alcohol and the ene product oxidised to the corresponding α,β-unsaturated ketone. By contrast, a related bulky chloroaluminium reagent catalysed the ene cyclisation cleanly, but preferentially to the undesired neomenthyl stereoisomer.
