The Upjohn dihydroxylation is an

organic reaction Organic reactions are chemical reactions involving organic compounds. The basic organic chemistry reaction types are addition reactions, elimination reactions, substitution reactions, pericyclic reactions, rearrangement reactions, mechanistic organ ...

which converts an

alkene In organic chemistry, an alkene, or olefin, is a hydrocarbon containing a carbon–carbon double bond. The double bond may be internal or at the terminal position. Terminal alkenes are also known as Alpha-olefin, α-olefins. The Internationa ...

to a ''cis'' vicinal

diol A diol is a chemical compound containing two hydroxyl groups ( groups). An aliphatic diol may also be called a glycol. This pairing of functional groups is pervasive, and many subcategories have been identified. They are used as protecting gro ...

. It was developed by V. VanRheenen, R. C. Kelly and D. Y. Cha of the Upjohn Company in 1976. It is a catalytic system using ''N''-methylmorpholine ''N''-oxide (NMO) as stoichiometric re-oxidant for the

osmium tetroxide Osmium tetroxide (also osmium(VIII) oxide) is the chemical compound with the formula OsO4. The compound is noteworthy for its many uses, despite its toxicity and the rarity of osmium. It also has a number of unusual properties, one being that the ...

. It is superior to previous catalytic methods. Prior to this method, use of stoichiometric amounts of the toxic and expensive reagent osmium tetroxide was often necessary. The Upjohn dihydroxylation is still often used for the formation of ''cis''-vicinal diols; however, it can be slow and is prone to

ketone In organic chemistry, a ketone is an organic compound with the structure , where R and R' can be a variety of carbon-containing substituents. Ketones contain a carbonyl group (a carbon-oxygen double bond C=O). The simplest ketone is acetone ( ...

byproduct formation. One of the peculiarities of the dihydroxylation of olefins is that the standard "racemic" method (the Upjohn dihydroxylation) is slower and often lower yielding than the asymmetric method (the

Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation (also called the Sharpless bishydroxylation) is the chemical reaction of an alkene with osmium tetroxide in the presence of a chirality (chemistry), chiral quinine ligand to form a Vicinal (chemistry), vicinal ...

Improvements to Upjohn dihydroxylation

In response to these problems, Stuart Warren and co-workers employed similar reaction conditions to the

, but replacing the chiral ligands with the achiral quinuclidine to give a racemic reaction product (assuming an achiral starting material is employed). This approach takes advantage of the fact that when using the Sharpless alkaloid ligands, the dihydroxylation of alkenes is faster and higher yielding than in their absence. This phenomenon became known as "ligand accelerated catalysis", a term coined by

Barry Sharpless Karl Barry Sharpless (born April 28, 1941) is an American stereochemist. He is a two-time Nobel laureate in chemistry, known for his work on stereoselective reactions and click chemistry. Sharpless was awarded half of the 2001 Nobel Prize i ...

during the development of his asymmetric protocol.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Upjohn Dihydroxylation Organic oxidation reactions Name reactions

Improvements to Upjohn dihydroxylation

See also

References