A simple, efficient, and environmentally-friendly heterogeneous Ru/C-catalyzed oxidation of secondary and primary alcohols without additives under an atmosphere of oxygen has been established.

Organoboron compounds are useful in asymmetric synthesis. We have developed an efficient methodology for the highly enantioselective synthesis of tertiary boronic esters from the corresponding secondary benzylic alcohols. Further stereospecific transformations of the boronic ester moiety are described including the preparation of tertiary alcohols, C-tertiary amines and tertiary arylalkanes. Se...

Gold(i)-catalysed addition of alcohols to 3,3-disubstituted cyclopropenes occurs in a highly regioselective and facile manner to produce alkyl tert-allylic ethers in good yields. The reaction is tolerant of sterically hindered substituents on the cyclopropene as well as primary and secondary alcohols as nucleophiles. In this full article, we report on the substrate scope and plausible mechanism...

Primary and secondary alcohols react with vinyl or isopropenyl acetate at room temperature in the presence of catalytic amounts (0.05-1 mol %) of Y5(OiPr)13O to give the corresponding esters. In selected cases, the yttrium catalyst promotes the selective O-acylation of amino alcohols without the formation of the amide. Enol esters also react with alpha-amino acid esters in the absence of a cata...

Butane-grown "Pseudomonas butanovora" expressed two soluble alcohol dehydrogenases (ADHs), an NAD(+)-dependent secondary ADH and an NAD(+)-independent primary ADH. Two additional NAD(+)-dependent secondary ADHs could be detected when cells were grown on 2-butanol and lactate. The inducible NAD(+)-independent 1-butanol dehydrogenase (BDH) of butane-grown cells was primarily responsible for 1-but...

Secondary beta-bromo alcohols can be transformed directly to ketones in very good yields by a free radical process. Tertiary beta-bromo alcohols do not react while the primary ones are transformed to aldehydes in lower yields. The reaction involves an abstraction of a hydrogen atom alpha to an OH group, followed by elimination of the bromine atom and subsequent tautomerization of an enol to a k...

Under the influence of a chiral palladium catalyst, 1,1-bis(pinacolboronate) esters undergo asymmetric cross-coupling with bromoalkenes to generate nonracemic allyl boronates with high levels of enantioselectivity. The so-formed allyl boronates may be oxidized with hydrogen peroxide to provide secondary allylic alcohols or with nitrosobenzene to furnish nonracemic tertiary allylic alcohols. Mec...

The present work addresses the development of an eco-friendly and cost-efficient protocol for the oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols to the corresponding aldehydes and ketones by mechanical processing under air. Ball milling was shown to promote the quantitative conversion of a broad set of alcohols into carbonyl compounds with no trace of an over-oxidation to carboxylic acids. The mec...

We investigated the acute toxic and metabolic effects of 23-aliphatic alcohols (16 saturated and 7 unsaturated) in the isolated perfused rat liver at a concentration of 65.1 mmol/l (approximately 0.3% ethanol). The capacity of the straight chain primary alcohols (methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, 1-butanol and 1-pentanol) to release the enzymes glutamate-pyruvate transaminase (GPT), lactate dehydr...