Macrocycles can restrict the rotation of substituents through steric repulsions, locking in conformations that provide or enhance the activities of pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, aroma chemicals, and materials. In many cases, the arrangement of substituents in the macrocycle imparts an element of planar chirality. The difficulty in predicting when planar chirality will arise, as well as the limited number of synthetic methods to impart selectivity, have led to planar chirality being regarded as an irritant. We report a strategy for enantio- and atroposelective biocatalytic synthesis of planar chiral macrocycles. The macrocycles can be formed with high enantioselectivity from simple building blocks and are decorated with functionality that allows one to further modify the macrocycles with diverse structural features.
The renewable macrocyclic musk 3-methylcyclohexadec-6-enone was prepared via macrocyclic olefin metathesis on gram scale using two different protocols: a room temperature batch process which afforded a 57% yield of the desired macrocycle, but required long reaction times (5 d). In contrast, a continuous flow strategy provided a lower yield of 32% of macrocycle, although the short reaction times (150 °C, 5 min) improve throughput (1 g/4.8 h). Batch and continuous flow protocols were also tested on other macrocyclizations involving substrates bearing trisubstituted olefins.
A series of 12 new copper-based photocatalysts of the type Cu(N^N)(P^P)BF4 were synthesized bearing π-extended diimine ligands. The complexes have red shifted absorptions and larger extinction coefficients than complexes prepared with a parent diimine, dmp. The complexes were evaluated for their ability to promote three different photochemical transformations. Although the complexes were inactive in a reductive PCET process, the complexes afforded good yields in both SET and ET processes. Interestingly, homoleptic copper-complexes derived from the π-extended diimines were significantly more active in SET processes than analogous complexes with simpler diimines.
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