ChemInform Abstract: Catalytic One-Pot Oxetane to Carbamate Conversions: Formal Synthesis of Drug Relevant Molecules

Oxetanes are versatile building blocks in drug-related synthesis to induce property-modulating effects. Whereas related oxiranes are widely used in coupling chemistry with carbon dioxide (CO2) to afford value-added commodity chemicals, oxetane/CO2 couplings remain extremely limited despite the recent advances in the synthesis of these four-membered heterocycles. Here we report an effective one-pot three-component reaction (3CR) strategy for the coupling of (substituted) oxetanes, amines and CO2 to afford a variety of functionalized carbamates with excellent chemoselectivity and good yields. The process is mediated by an aluminium-based catalyst under relatively mild conditions and the developed catalytic methodology can be applied to the formal synthesis of two pharmaceutically relevant carbamates with the 3CR being a key step.