Heterocycl. Commun., Vol. 16(4-6), pp. 217–220, 2010 • Copyright © by Walter de Gruyter • Berlin • New York. DOI 10.1515/HC.2010.016 Preliminary Communication The oxidation of secondary alcohols by dimethyldioxirane: re-examination of kinetic isotope effects A lfons L. Baumstark *, P edro C. Vasquez, Mark 1991 ; Denmark and Wu , 1998 ; Frohn et al. , 1998 ) or in an Cunningham a and Pamela M. Leggett-Robinson b isolated solution (Murray and Jeyaraman , 1985 ; Baumstark and McCloskey , 1987 ). The epoxidation of alkenes and het- Department of Chemistry , Center for Biotech and Drug eroatom oxidation by isolated solutions of 1 in acetone have Design, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia been extensively investigated (Murray and Jeyaraman , 1985 ; 30302-4098 , USA Baumstark and McCloskey , 1987 ; Baumstark and Vasquez , * Corresponding author 1988 ; Winkeljohn et al. , 2004 , 2007 ). Dioxiranes can also e-mail:
[email protected] insert oxygen into unactivated CH bonds of alkanes (Murray et al. , 1986 ). However, this important reaction generally requires a dioxirane more reactive than dimethyldioxirane to Abstract be of utility (Kuck et al. , 1994 ; D ’ Accolti et al., 2003 ). The oxidation of secondary alcohols by dimethyldioxirane, 1 , to The kinetic isotope effects for the oxidation of a series of ketones can be achieved in high yield under mild conditions deuterated isopropanols and α -trideuteromethyl benzyl alco- and with convenient reaction times (Kovac and Baumstark , hol by dimethyldioxirane ( 1 ) to the corresponding ketones 1994 ; Cunningham et al. , 1998; Baumstark, 1999 ). Two were determined in dried acetone at 23 ° C. A primary kinetic mechanistic extremes have been proposed for secondary alco- isotope effect (PKIE) of 5.2 for the oxidation of isopropyl- hol oxidation by 1 : a) concerted insertion (Mello et al.