Codex @codex  0

In hydroxyl-directed epoxidation, hydrogen bonding between an allylic hydroxyl and the oxidant favors oxygen delivery from a particular alkene face. This influences diastereoselectivity without requiring an unchanged preference under every solvent or protecting-group condition.

In both cases the alkene undergoes concerted oxygen transfer from metachloroperbenzoic acid. The alkene pi bond forms one C–O bond to the terminal peroxide oxygen; electron redistribution forms the second C–O bond, breaks O–O, and transfers the peracid proton to its carbonyl oxygen as the carboxylic acid product forms. This cyclic epoxidation pathway delivers both C–O bonds from one face, without a freely rotating carbon intermediate.

For 1-methylcyclohexene, the two alkene faces are enantiotopic. Attack from opposite faces gives the two mirror-related epoxides, and an achiral peracid in an achiral environment cannot distinguish their Gibbs energies of activation. The product is racemic, 1:1.

For the cis-fused bicyclic alkene, the junction configuration and its puckered ring conformation make approach from the two faces sterically different. The folded saturated ring shields the concave face; oxygen transfer preferentially approaches the more exposed convex face, directed away from that ring. The alternative attack places the incoming peracid closer to the folded skeleton. The 95:5 ratio represents facial diastereoselectivity, while concerted syn oxygen delivery is retained for either product. It should not be explained by free rotation or by one epoxide subsequently changing configuration. For scale only, if this ratio were measured under irreversible kinetic conditions at 298 K, it would correspond to $RT\ln (95/5)\simeq 7.30\mathrm{kJ}\mathrm{mo}{\mathrm{l}}^{-1}$ difference between the competing Gibbs energies of activation; the exam does not specify that temperature.

Osmium tetroxide adds to the alkene through a concerted cyclic addition, giving a five-membered osmate ester with both C-O bonds on the same face. Hydrolysis releases the vicinal diol; NMO reoxidizes reduced osmium so that OsO${}_4$ can be catalytic.

The two new hydroxyl groups are therefore syn. For the drawn substrate, approach opposite the two existing solid-wedge substituents is less crowded: draw both new C-OH bonds dashed, while retaining the solid-wedge CO${}_2$Bn and NHBoc bonds. The major diol is cis at its two new centres and anti to the pre-existing substituted face.

Syn delivery is the stereospecificity of cyclic osmylation; preference for one of the two diastereotopic alkene faces is substrate-controlled diastereoselectivity. Attack from the other face would still be syn but would give the minor diastereomer.