Palladium-Catalyzed Chemo- and Enantioselective Oxidation of Allylic Esters and Carbonates

The palladium-catalyzed oxidation of allylic esters and carbonates using a novel potassium nitronate has been developed. This method is highly chemoselective, leaving other esters, alcohols, thioethers, and amines undisturbed. The oxidation can be operated in two modes: an achiral mode, using either PPh3 or rac-2 as ligand, or a chiral and highly enantioselective mode, using 2 as ligand. The oxidative enantioselective desymmetrization of meso bis-esters provides a significantly shorter method to arrive at commonly used synthetic intermediates compared to other strategies. Highly efficient kinetic resolution is also possible using this methodology.