Ring-Opening Selenation of Cyclopropanol for the Selective Synthesis of β-Hydroxy-Substituted Selenylated Ketones

Ring opening of cycloalkanols has been employed as a commonly used strategy to prepare diverse distal functionalized ketones. However, most of these ketones obtained by this strategy belong to monofunctional ketones, while difunctional ketones with more potential application value have been rarely reported. Herein, we first reported a mild I2-promoted ring-opening selenation of cyclopropanol to synthesize various distal difunctional ketones. In the reaction, hydroxyl (−OH) derived from water and RSe+ from diselenide can be introduced into the α- and β-positions, respectively, delivering β-hydroxy selenylated ketones in good to excellent yields.