Epoxides are versatile building blocks for the synthesis of natural productsand biologically active compounds. These synthetic intermediates can be made bycatalytic asymmetric epoxidation of olefins. We have successfully sythesized aseries of chiral vanadium salen catalysts.  The catalysts werecharacterized by X-Ray crystallography and high resolution mass spectrometry.These vanadium salen catalysts are unique in that they are derived from readilyavailable amino acids. In addition, we have also tested the effectiveness ofthe vanadium salen catalysts towards the epoxidation of olefins and measured the enantioselectivity and diastereoselectivity of the reactions.These new catalysts are advantageous over previous vanadium catalystsin their relative ease of synthesis and their high activity towards clean, efficientepoxidations.

Epoxidation of olefins using chiral salen vanadium catalysts

240th National Meeting (2010)

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