Facile preparation of fluorine-containing 2,3-epoxypropanoates and their epoxy ring-opening reactions with various nucleophiles.

We describe herein a facile method to access 2,3-epoxyesters with fluorine-containing substituents at their 3-position starting from the corresponding enoates by utilization of the low-costed and easy-to-handle reagent, NaOCl·5HO. Because very little has been disclosed about the reactivity of such 2,3-epoxyesters, their epoxy ring opening by a variety of nucleophiles was carried out and we succeeded in clarifying these chemo- as well as regioselective processes proceeding via the S2 mechanism to mainly afford 2-substituted 3-hydroxyesters usually in a highly selective manner.