Methanesulfonamide: a cosolvent and a general acid catalyst in sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylations.

To obtain information about the effect that methanesulfonamide has in the hydrolysis step in Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation, a series of aliphatic and conjugated aromatic olefins were dihydroxylated with and without methanesulfonamide. The hypothesis in this study was that methanesulfonamide is a cosolvent that aids in the transfer of the hydroxide ions from the water phase to the organic phase. A plot of t90% versus the computational partition coefficient clog P of the intermediate osmate ester of nonterminal aliphatic olefins revealed that the polarity of the intermediate osmate ester has a significant effect on the reaction time and methanesulfonamide effect.