Selective Aerobic Oxygenation of Tertiary Allylic Alcohols with Molecular Oxygen.

Aerobic epoxidation of tertiary allylic alcohols remains a significant challenge. Reported here is an efficient and highly chemoselective copper-catalyzed epoxidation and semipinacol rearrangement reaction of tertiary allylic alcohols with molecular oxygen. The solvent 1,4-dioxane activates dioxygen, thereby precluding the addition of a sacrificial reductant.