Categories: O-H Bond Formation, C-H Bond Formation >
Reduction of epoxides
Recent Literature

A magnetically separable palladium catalyst is highly active and selective
for epoxide hydrogenolysis at room temperature under 1 atm H2 and can
be recycled without loss of activity. The catalyst was synthesized simply
through a sol-gel process incorporating palladium nanoparticles and
superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles in aluminum oxyhydroxide matrix.
M. S. Kwon, I. S. Park, J. S. Jang, J. S. Lee, J. Park, Org. Lett., 2007,
9, 3417-3419.

Highly regioselective ring opening of epoxides with poor nucleophiles such as
indole, borane, O-trimethylsilylhydroxylamine, p-nitroaniline and
sterically hindered tert-butylamine is a fast and convenient reaction in
the presence of 5.0 M lithium perchlorate-Et2O solution (LPDE).
A. Heydari, M. Mehrdad, A. Maleki, N. Ahmadi, Synthesis, 2004,
1557-1558.

The hydrogenation of α,β-epoxy ketones can be mediated by a catalytic amount
of BNA+Br- using Na2S2O4
as primary reducing agent to form the corresponding β-hydroxy ketones in
high yield. A radical mechanism has been proposed.
H.-J. Xu, Y.-C. Liu, Y. Fu, Y.-D. Wu, Org. Lett.,
2006, 8, 3449-3451.

The catalytic generation of activated carboxylates from epoxyaldehydes
enables a direct, anti-selective, convenient and mild synthesis of
β-hydroxyesters.
K. Y.-K. Chow, J. W. Bode, J. Am. Chem. Soc.,
2004, 126, 8126-8127.
