Copper‐Catalyzed Aerobic CC Bond Cleavage of Lactols with N‐Hydroxy Phthalimide for Synthesis of Lactones

The transformation of cyclic hemiacetals (lactols) into lactones has been achieved by Cu-catalyzed aerobic CC bond cleavage in the presence of N-hydroxy phthalimide (NHPI). The present process is composed of a multistep sequence including a) formation of exo-cyclic enol ethers by dehydration; b) addition of phthalimide N-oxyl radical to the enol ethers followed by trapping of the resulting C-radicals with molecular oxygen to form peroxy radicals; c) reductive generation of oxy radicals and subsequent β-radical fragmentation to generate lactones.