Studies of Biomimtic Oxidations and Racemizations

Abstract: This thesis deals with studies of ruthenium-catalyzed hydrogen transfer reactions for oxidations and racemization.Through optimisation of the substrate-selective redox catalyst, the electron and proton transfer mediator (a benzoquinone derivative), and the oxygen-activating metal macrocycle a highly efficient biomimetic oxidation of secondary alcohols was obtained. Several alcohols were subjected to the new oxidation protocol and the corresponding ketones were isolated in high yield.The deactivation of the oxygen-activating metal macrocycle retarded the aerobic oxidation of primary alcohols. Encapsulation of the metal macrocycle into zeolite, described in chapter 3, proved to be an efficient method to solve this problem and comparable conversion of alcohols was achieved. The immobilization of the oxygen-activating porphyrin to a surface can be an alternative approach to solve the deactivation problem. Therefore as the first step towards studies of immobilized porphyrins on a metal surface (of gold or silver), S-thioacetyl derivatized porphyrins were synthesized; two alternative syntheses are described in chapter 4.A new and effecient ruthenium-catalyzed racemization protocol was established by proper ligand tuning. The racemization of the enantiomerically pure alcohols was increased significantly; this work is reported in chapter 5.