Chemistry of novel compounds with multifunctional carbon structure. VI. Synthetic studies and 19F-nuclear magnetic resonance investigation of novel .ALPHA.,.ALPHA.-disubstituted fluoroacetates.

As a part of our work on synthetic studies of chiral monofluoro compounds and molecular design of efficient reagents for optical purity determination, we focused on novel α, α-disubstituted α-fluoroacetic acids (8a-d) (R1=Me, Ph; R2=C≡CPh, Me, Bu). The ethyl esters (13a-d) were prepared by introduction of alkyl groups into the appropriate α-keto acids (9a, b) followed by fluorination of the corresponding hydroxy-esters (12a-d) with diethylaminosulfur trifluoride (DAST). For comparison with Mosher's reagent (2-methoxy-2-trifluoromethylphenylacetic acid, (MTPA)), the ethyl esters (13a-d) were converted into three representative diastereoisomers, (14a-d), (15a-d), and (16a-d), and 19F-nuclear magnetic resonance (19F-NMR) chemical shift differences between pairs of diastereoisomers (Δδ) were obtained. These α, α-disubstituted α-fluoroacetate derivatives have much larger Δδ values than the corresponding derivatives of MTPA, which strongly indicates that the acids (8a-d) can potentially be better reagents for ee determination than MTPA. The influence on the Δδ values of the steric effects which arise upon introduction of the two substituents (R1 and R2) on the fluorine-bearing chiral center is also discussed.