Strategies to Design Chemocatalytic Racemization of Tertiary Alcohols: State of the Art & Utilization for Dynamic Kinetic Resolution

Abstract The synthesis of enantiomerically pure tertiary alcohols is an important issue in organic synthesis of a range of pharmaceuticals including molecules such as the anti‐HIV drug Efavirenz. A conceptually elegant approach to such enantiomers is the dynamic kinetic resolution of racemic tertiary alcohols, which, however, requires efficient racemization strategies. The racemization of tertiary alcohols is particularly challenging due to various side reactions that can occur because of their high tendency for elimination reactions. In the last few years, several complementary catalytic concepts for racemization of tertiary alcohols have been developed, characterized by efficient racemization and suppression of unwanted side‐reactions. Besides resins bearing sulfonic acid moieties and a combination of boronic acid and oxalic acid as heterogeneous and homogeneous Brønsted‐acids, respectively, immobilized oxovanadium and piperidine turned out to be useful catalysts. The latter two catalysts, which have already been applied to different types of substrates, also have proven good compatibility with lipase, thus leading to the first two examples of chemoenzymatic dynamic kinetic resolution of tertiary alcohols. In this review, the difficulties in racemizing tertiary alcohols are specifically described, and the recently developed complementary concepts to overcome these hurdles are summarized.