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Insertion of oxygen beside an aldehyde or ketone carbonyl, commonly with a peroxy acid. Cyclic ketones give ring-expanded lactones. The migrating group retains its configuration, but competing migrations can give different constitutional products.

An acetal retrosynthesis separates the target into trans-cyclohexane-1,2-diol and cyclohexyl methyl ketone. Both fragments can be prepared using separate portions of cyclohexene.

For the diol, epoxidation with a peroxy acid such as mCPBA gives cyclohexene oxide. Acid-catalysed opening with water occurs by backside attack on the protonated epoxide, giving the anti, hence trans, diol. A syn dihydroxylation would give the wrong relative configuration.

For the ketone, add HBr to another portion of cyclohexene to obtain bromocyclohexane, form its grignard reagent with Mg in dry ether, and add acetonitrile. Hydrolyse the resulting magnesium imine salt to ${\mathrm{C}}_6{\mathrm{H}}_{11}\mathrm{COMe}$. A nitrile is useful here because addition followed by hydrolysis stops at the ketone instead of giving the double addition associated with an ester.

Finally combine the isolated trans diol and ketone with catalytic acid and remove water to form the cyclic ketal. The ketone carbon becomes the acetal carbon bearing Me and cyclohexyl; the two original diol C–O bonds retain their relative configuration. Anti epoxide opening supplies the required trans relationship before ketal formation. ketal formation is an equilibrium and the trans-fused product may be less favourable than an unstrained acetal, so effective water removal and isolation are necessary; substituting a cis diol is not an acceptable shortcut.