title: Effect of temperature on the enantioselectivity in the oxazaborolidine-catalyzed asymmetric reduction of ketones. Noncatalytic borane reduction, a nonneglectable factor in the reduction system.
abstract: The effect of temperature on the enantioselectivity of the oxazaborolidine-catalyzed asymmetric borane reduction of ketones has been investigated carefully using alkyl aryl ketones with a variety of functional groups and a B-methoxyoxazaborolidine derived from trimethyl borate and (S)-alpha,alpha-diphenylprolinol as a catalyst. The reductions were carried out over a range of temperatures in THF and toluene with or without the catalyst. The reductive rates increase along with increasing reaction temperature with or without the catalyst by determining the conversion of the ketones to alcohols by GC analysis. However, the rates of the catalytic reductions increase faster than those without the catalyst. The results indicate that the noncatalytic borane reduction is an important factor to the enantioselectivity in the reduction. The highest enantioselectivities were usually obtained between 20 and 30 degrees C in the asymmetric reduction.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of Ministry of Education, Department of Chemical Biology, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China. jxxu@chem.pku.edu.cn
authors.forename: Jiaxi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Tiezheng
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Qihan
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang