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18.12: Acetals as Protecting Groups

  • Page ID
    183101
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    Acetals as Protecting Groups

    The importance of acetals as carbonyl derivatives lies chiefly in their stability and lack of reactivity in neutral to strongly basic environments. As long as they are not treated by acids, especially aqueous acid, acetals exhibit all the lack of reactivity associated with ethers in general. Among the most useful and characteristic reactions of aldehydes and ketones is their reactivity toward strongly nucleophilic (and basic) metallo-hydride, alkyl and aryl reagents. If the carbonyl functional group is converted to an acetal these powerful reagents have no effect; thus, acetals are excellent protective groups, when these irreversible addition reactions must be prevented.

    In the following example we would like a Grignard reagent to react with the ester and not the ketone. This cannot be done without a protecting group because Grignard reagents react with esters and ketones.

    17.jpg

    18.jpg

    Exercise

    19. Specify the reagents to perform the following chemical transformations.

    ch 19 sect 12 exercise.png

    Answer

    19.

    ch 19 sect 12 exercise solution updated.png

    Contributors and Attributions


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