Making Fe(BPBP)-catalyzed C–H and CC oxidations more affordable

Abstract

The limited availability of catalytic reaction components may represent a major hurdle for the practical application of many catalytic procedures in organic synthesis. In this work, we demonstrate that the mixture of isomeric iron complexes [Fe(OTf)₂(mix-BPBP)] (mix-1), composed of Λ-α-[Fe(OTf)₂(S,S-BPBP)] (S,S-1), Δ-α-[Fe(OTf)₂(R,R-BPBP)] (R,R-1) and Δ/Λ-β-[Fe(OTf)₂(R,S-BPBP)] (R,S-1), is a practical catalyst for the preparative oxidation of various aliphatic compounds including model hydrocarbons and optically pure natural products using hydrogen peroxide as an oxidant. Among the species present in mix-1, S,S-1 and R,R-1 are catalytically active, act independently and represent ca. 75% of mix-1. The remaining 25% of mix-1 is represented by mesomeric R,S-1 which nominally plays a spectator role in both C–H and CC bond oxidation reactions. Overall, this mixture of iron complexes displays the same catalytic profile as its enantiopure components that have been previously used separately in sp³ C–H oxidations. In contrast to them, mix-1 is readily available on a multi-gram scale via two high yielding steps from crude DL/meso-2,2′-bipyrrolidine. Next to its use in C–H oxidation, mix-1 is active in chemospecific epoxidation reactions, which has allowed us to develop a practical catalytic protocol for the synthesis of epoxides.