Titanium-Mediated Olefin Epoxidation Using Hydrogen Peroxide

Significance Enantioenriched epoxides are versatile intermediates in organic synthesis. The synthetic methods developed so far often involve oxidants of low atom economy or require the use of activated substrates. The authors found that di-µ-oxo titanium(salalen) complex 1 epoxidizes conjugated olefins with high TON in the presence of hydrogen peroxide as oxidant. They extended the methodology to unactivated olefins bearing only alkyl groups on the alkene. See also previous work: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2005 , 44 , 4935; Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2006 , 45 , 3478.