Synthesis of new amphiphilic dendrons bearing aliphatic hydrocarbon surface sectors and a monocarboxylic or dicarboxylic acid focal point.

[structure: see text]. A new series of amphiphilic G1-G3 dendrons containing purely aliphatic hydrocarbon dendritic surface sectors and one or two carboxylic acid group(s) at the focal point was synthesized in good yields. The key branching steps involve diallylation reactions of diethyl malonate or Meldrum's acid. These dendrons are highly soluble in hexane despite having highly polar carboxylic acid groups at the focal point.

Arabinose-derived ketones as catalysts for asymmetric epoxidation of alkenes.

[reaction: see text] Readily available arabinose-derived ketones, containing a tunable butane-2,3-diacetal as the steric blocker, displayed increasing enantioselectivity (up to 90% ee) with the size of the acetal alkyl group in catalytic asymmetric epoxidation of trans-disubstituted and trisubstituted alkenes. The stereochemical communication between our ketone catalysts and the alkene substrates is mainly due to steric effect, and electronic effect involving pi-pi interaction between phenyl groups of substrate and of catalyst did not appear to be operative in our system.