Pubblicato in Henry Rzepa's Blog
Autore Henry Rzepa
Previously, I looked at autocatalytic mechanisms where the carboxyl group of an oxetane-carboxylic acid could catalyse its transformation to a lactone, finding that a chain of two such groups were required to achieve the result. Here I look at an alternative mode where the oxetane-carboxylate itself acts as the transfer chain, via a H-bonded dimer shown below.