Journal of the American Chemical Society 2005-05-04

Catalytic asymmetric synthesis of esters from ketenes.

Sheryl L Wiskur, Gregory C Fu

Index: J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127(17) , 6176-7, (2005)

Full Text: HTML

Abstract

By building on elementary principles of Brønsted acid-base chemistry, a nucleophile-catalyzed method for the asymmetric synthesis of esters from ketenes has been transformed into a much more versatile and effective Brønsted acid-catalyzed process. The product aryl esters can be converted into useful derivatives, such as enantioenriched alcohols and carboxylic acids.