Synlett 2019; 30(06): 721-725
DOI: 10.1055/s-0037-1612247
letter
© Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart · New York

Ruthenium-Promoted Acceptorless and Oxidant-Free Lactone Synthesis in Aqueous Medium

Anita Bhatia
,
Muthukumar Kannan
,
Senthilkumar Muthaiah*
Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra, Kurukshetra-136119, Haryana, India   Email: msenthil@nitkkr.ac.in
› Author Affiliations
This work was supported by Science and Engineering Research Board, India in the form of Start-Up Research Grant (Young Scientists, No. 58/FT /C5-092/2014). AB thanks DST, WOS-A of India for fellowship (SR/WOS-A/CS-1035/2015).
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Publication History

Received: 02 January 2019

Accepted after revision: 30 January 2019

Publication Date:
25 February 2019 (online)


Abstract

Ruthenium-catalyzed formation of lactones from diols in aqueous medium has been demonstrated. 1,3,5-Triazaphosphaadamantane (PTA) included water-soluble ruthenium complexes [RuCl2(PPh3)(2,6-Py-(CH2-PTA)2]·2Br and [RuCl2(PPh3)2(2-PyCH2PTA)]·Br in the presence of KOH were found to be efficient for the synthesis of lactones from diols. The reported synthetic protocol is green as it uses water as solvent, avoids the use of any hydrogen acceptor/oxidant, and produces hydrogen as the only side product. Mechanistic studies revealed that lactone formation involved aldehyde intermediate and followed dehydrogenative pathway.

Supporting Information