Biphenyl dioxolanes as circular dichroism probes for the assignment of absolute configuration to aliphatic diols: Extending the scope to anti 1,n-diols and cyclic syn 1,2-diols

We describe herein the use of a flexible biphenyl moiety as efficient chirality probe in the assignment of the absolute configuration (AC) of aliphatic, non-chromophoric diols. The diols are transformed in the corresponding biphenyl dioxolanes in which the biphenyl system has either a P or M torsion depending on the chirality of the diol. As the correlation between biphenyl torsion and diol AC has been established and the sense of torsion is revealed by the sign of the biphenyl A band at 250 nm in the CD spectrum of the dioxolane, then the diols AC can be assigned simply looking at the CD spectra of these derivatives. This approach proved to be general, straightforward, and reliable for anti 1,2- 1,3-, and 1,4-diols bearing both one and two stereogenic centers and for cyclic syn 1,2-diols