Benzoylation of a Polyol chymistry

Amino polyols are an important part of synthetically created amino acids. They are highly antibacterial and immunosuppressive and so are used in various antibiotics and antifungal products. This reaction shows one of the step necessary in creating the amino polyol.

Benzoyl chloride is added to the polyol to form a tribenzoate compound. In this reaction, the polyol has several R-O-H groups that act as weak nucleophiles. When the benzoyl-Cl bond breaks upon addition to the pyridine solvent, the benzoyl group acts as an electrophile. With the help of the DMAP (dimethylaminopyridine) catalyst in the reaction, the R-O-H group is deprotonated and the benzoyl group is added to the remaining R-O form the final tribenzoylated product. As seen above, the reaction has a yield of about 90%. The OTBS (t-buytldimethylsiloxy) groups do not participate in this reaction.

There is one hydroxyl group left on the molecule produced. All of the hydroxyl groups would be replaced by benzoyl groups if the reaction was not stopped after three groups had been added. To stop the reaction at this point, three equivalents of benzoyl chloride were used for every polyol.

For the full text of the article describing this process, see this report.