Abstract This thesis is concerned with microbially derived cis-3,5-cyclohexadiene-1,2- dihydroxy-1-carboxylic acid and its iron tricarbonyl derivatives as precursors for the efficient and practical synthesis of useful products. The opening chapter consists of a review of the biocatalytic cis-dihydroxylation process including its mechanism and applications in synthesis. In a Chapter 2 the utility of cyclohexadiene iron tricarbonyl complexes to date is outlined, with particular focus on their preparation and reactivity. Synthetic routes towards the synthesis of the natural products gabaculine and carbazole alkaloids are described, followed by the preparation of tarniflu and general methods of decomplexation. Chapter 3 presents the synthesis of novel iron tricarbonyl complexes and studies on their reactivity are disclosed. (Figure A.) Chapter 4 describes the formation of a new rearrangement product of the acetonide protected iron tricarbonyl complexes. In order to validate this process, independent studies with labelled compounds have been employed. Following Myers' procedure for microbial oxidation of p-deutero-benzoic acid, quantities of a novel deutero-diol product were successfully prepared and used to elucidate the mechanism of the rearrangement process. (Figure B) In Chapter 5 the formation of the f]5 cyclohexadienyl complexes is discussed followed by the outcome of the nucleophilic addition products. Chapter 7 provides detailed specific and general procedures for the synthesis of the compounds described within this thesis, along with their characterisation data. The appendices provide analytical support to this thesis and list of publications. Each chapter includes a separate discussion of the results and Chapter 6 provides an overall summary and suggestions for possible future work.

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The cyclopentadienone-fused dihydropyrenes 46 and 47 were synthesized. The internal methyl resonances, the coupling constants, NICS calculations and X-ray results confirmed that the cyclopentadienone displays antiaromatic character resulting in bond localization in the annulene ring consistent with a 4n-pi fused system. The ring current of the dihydropyrene fragment is reduced by fusion of the antiaromatic system by about 80% of that caused by benzene. The syntheses of the methylfulvene fused dihydropyrene 56 and the phenylfulvene fused dihydropyrene 58 have been accomplished. The calculated and experimental NMR data and NICS calculations all demonstrated that the fulvenes had weak diatropic ring currents and caused bond localizations in the DHP rings, in which phenyl fulvene has a larger effect than that of methyl fulvene. A number of bis-dihydropyrene systems, bis-dihydropyrene ketone 117, bis-benzo[e]dihydropyrene ketone 119, benzo[e]dihydropyrene dihydropyrene ketone 122, bis-benzo[e]dihydropyrene methylene 124 and the benzo[e]dihydropyrene- dihydropyrene acetylene 130, have been synthesized, in which 117, 119 and 124 are homo-systems and 122 and 130 are hetero-systems. The multiple photoswitching properties study found that all of these systems except 130 showed multi-states during the photo opening and photo closing processes, which means that each end of the DHP units photo opens or closes separately rather than synchronously. In the homo switches 117, 119 and 124, the two DHP units act independently, but the relative differentiation is not very significant. On the other hand, the hetero-switch 122 showed fully differentiated photo opening process and almost a pure open-closed intermediate 122’ could be achieved. This is the first example which clearly showed four states in the UV closing process. The relative photo opening and closing rates compared to benzoDHP 36 have also been studied. It was found that while the carbonyl linker largely increased the relative photo opening rate (117, 119 and 122), the methylene linker only increased it slightly (124). The photo closing processes were always fast as usual. The studies of the thermal return reactions of these systems showed that while the carbonyl linker substantially slowed down the thermal return reactions of the DHP units (117, 119 and 122), the methylene linker speeded it up slightly (124). The mono-iron tricarbonyl benzo[e]dihydropyrene complex 152, the bis-iron tricarbonyl benzo[e]dihydropyrene complex 153 and the iron tetracarbonyl dihydropyrene complex 151 were synthesized. The structures of 152 and 153 were determined by X-ray crystallography. The coordinations of iron tricarbonyl moieties to the DHP rings caused a distortion of ca. 30 degree away from the central DHP plane. Coordination also increased bond alternation and reduced ring currents in the DHP rings. 1H-NMR and X-ray studies showed that 152 showed a weak paratropic ring current in the DHP ring. Iron coordination of the DHP completely stopped the photochromic properties of the dihydropyrenes.