The Palladium-Catalyzed Oxidative Kinetic Resolution of Secondary Alcohols with Molecular Oxygen

The oxidation of secondary alcohols is one of the most common and well-studied reactions in chemistry. Although excellent catalytic enantioselective methods exist for a variety of oxidation processes, such as epoxidation, dihydroxylation, and aziridination, it is surprising that there are relatively few catalytic enantioselective examples of the ubiquitous alcohol oxidation. In connection with a general program dealing with the discovery of new catalytic oxidation systems, we present herein the development of a catalytic oxidative kinetic resolution of secondary alcohols that uses molecular oxygen as the terminal oxidant (see Scheme 1)