Chemistry > Aldehydes and Ketones > 13.0 Addition of Oxygen Nucleophile

  Aldehydes and Ketones
    1.0 Introduction
    2.0 Methods of Preparation
    3.0 Physical Properties
    4.0 Relative Reactivities of Carbonyl Compounds
    5.0 Addition of Carbon Nucleophiles
    6.0 Haloform Reactions
    7.0 Aldol Condensations
    8.0 Claisen Condensation
    9.0 Intramolecular Claisen Condensation
    10.0 Cannizzaro Reaction
    11.0 Reformatsky Reaction
    12.0 Addition of Nitrogen Nucleophiles
    13.0 Addition of Oxygen Nucleophile
    14.0 Addition of Sulphur Nucleophile
    15.0 Oxidation of Aldehydes And Ketones
    16.0 Reduction of Aldehyde and Ketones
    17.0 Other Reactions Of Aldehydes And Ketones

13.9 Acetals are Protecting Groups

Although acetals are hydrolyzed to aldehydes and ketones in aqueous acid, they are stable in basic solutions:

Because of this property, acetals give us a convenient method for protecting aldehyde and ketone groups from undesired reactions in basic solutions. (Acetals are really gem-diethers, and, like ethers, they are relatively unreactive toward bases). We can convert an aldehyde or ketone to an acetal, carry out a reaction on some other part of the molecule, and then hydrolyze the acetal with aqueous acid.

Keto group are more easily reduced than ester groups. Any reducing agent $\left( {e.g.{\text{ }}LiAl{H_4}or{\text{ }}{H_2}/Ni} \right)$ that can reduce the ester group of A reduces the keto group as well. But if we “protect” the keto group by converting it to a cyclic acetal (the ester group does not react), we can reduce the ester group in basic solution without affecting the cyclic acetal. After we finish the ester reduction, we can hydrolyze the cyclic acetal and obtain our desired product B:



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