Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry
Paper
π-activated and aliphatic alcohols are displaced with a wide
range of nucleophiles without isomerization or cleavage of
acid-sensitive groups under low catalyst loadings and in the
absence of rigorously dried solvents or an inert atmosphere,
providing a highly practical method for an important class of
transformations. We anticipate that the unique chemo-
selectivity profile of strong neutral Lewis acids such as
B(C6F5)3 will be of broad utility in synthesis when Lewis acid
catalyzed transformations must be carried out in the presence
of water or other protic functional groups.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by grants from the LabEx CSC
“Chemistry of Complex Systems” and the European Commu-
nity’s Marie Curie Actions FP7-PEOPLE Program (CIG-2012-
326112). F.C.F. thanks the French Embassy to Germany for a
fellowship. M.H. thanks the European Community’s Marie
Curie Actions FP7-PEOPLE Program for a fellowship (IEF-2012-
326113). E.W. was funded by a French MRT fellowship. M.D.
thanks the Région Alsace for partial support.
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