A practical way to synthesize chiral fluoro-containing polyhydro-2H-chromenes from monoterpenoids

Conditions enabling the single-step preparative synthesis of chiral 4-fluoropolyhydro-2H-chromenes in good yields through a reaction between monoterpenoid alcohols with para-menthane skeleton and aldehydes were developed for the first time. The BF(3)·Et(2)O/H(2)O system is used both as a catalyst and as a fluorine source. The reaction can involve aliphatic aldehydes as well as aromatic aldehydes containing various acceptor and donor substituents. 4-Hydroxyhexahydro-2H-chromenes were demonstrated to be capable of converting to 4-fluorohexahydro-2H-chromenes under the developed conditions, the reaction occurs with inversion of configuration.