Grieco elimination

The Grieco elimination is an organic reaction describing the elimination reaction of an aliphatic primary alcohol through a selenide to a terminal alkene ^[1].

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The alcohol first reacts with o-nitrophenylselenocyanate and tributylphosphine to a selenide in a nucleophilic substitution on electron deficient selenium. In the second step the selenide is oxidized with hydrogen peroxide to a selenoxide in which elimination takes place with expulsion of a selenol in a fashion similar to that of the Cope elimination. This reaction takes part in the synthesis of ring C of the Danishefsky Taxol synthesis.

References

• ^  Organoselenium chemistry. A facile one-step synthesis of alkyl aryl selenides from alcohols Paul A. Grieco, Sydney Gilman, Mugio Nishizawa; J. Org. Chem.; 1976; 41(8); 1485-1486. Abstract