Shunsuke Sueki

A concise and direct cyanation of secondary and tertiary benzylic and allylic alcohols catalyzed by Brønsted acid has been developed using trimethylsilyl cyanide (TMSCN) as a cyanide source and 1,1,1,3,3,3‐hexafluoro‐2‐propanol (HFIP) as a solvent. The present transition metal‐free catalytic process is operationally simple to perform under “open‐flask” conditions and it is applicable to the preparation of a number of α‐arylacetonitriles as well as late‐stage material transformations. The effectiveness of the present protocol was further demonstrated by the first enantioselective synthesis and determination of the absolute configuration of verimol F.

Divergent synthesis of multi-substituted phenanthrenes based on an internal redox reaction/ring expansion sequence was achieved.

We have developed a sequential hydride shift process involving a [1,8]-hydride shift. When cinnamylidene malonates having a biphenyl core were treated with 30 mol% Yb(OTf)3 and 10 mol% iPr2NEt, the desired sequential [1,8]-[1,5]-hydride shift process proceeded smoothly to afford synthetically challenging nine-membered carbocycle-fused piperidine derivatives in good chemical yields (up to 77%). Notably, the desired nine-membered carbocycles could not be obtained by a single [1,8]-hydride shift/cyclization process, suggesting that the employment of the sequential system is crucial to achieving the reaction. (Figure presented.).