Highly selective oxidative cleavage of β-cyclodextrin-epoxide/aziridine complexes with IBX in water

Water, an environmentally friendly reaction medium, has been utilized for the reaction of IBX with various epoxides 1 and aziridines 2 as their beta-cyclodextrin complexes to afford for the first time alpha-hydroxyketones 3 and alpha-aminoketones 4, respectively.