Design and synthesis of oxacycles from norbornene derivatives via ring-opening metathesis and ring-rearrangement metathesis

Norbornene derivatives containing oxygen atom(s) are found to undergo ring-rearrangement metathesis sequence to deliver cyclic ethers. Here, we have established a simple, efficient and an atom-economic process for the synthesis of fused and spiro-oxacyclic compounds starting with cyclopentadiene. Compounds prepared in this study are difficult to assemble by conventional retrosynthetic routes. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.