This is an excellent article, with a very good review of other methods which has been used for the rearrangement of epoxides to carbonyl compounds, and for our interests the rearrangement of propenylbenzene epoxides to phenylacetones is the most interesting transformation (such as isosafrole expoxide to MDP2P).
The reviewed methods include Pd(OAc)2/PPh3, BF3·Et2O, MgBr2, lithium salts, Indium chloride, Bismuth salts like BiOClO4/Bi(OTf)3, methylaluminium bis(4-bromo-2,6-di-tert-butylphenoxide) (MABR) as well as their own invention, to use catalytic (1 mol%) IrCl3·xH2O, which gives 100% conversion of propenylbenzene epoxide to P2P (THF/50°C/2h).
Iridium-Catalyzed Meinwald Epoxide Rearrangement
Iyad Karamé, M. Lorraine Tommasino and Marc Lemaire
Tet. Lett. 44(41), 7687-7689 (2003) (https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/meinwald.rearr.ircl3.html)
(https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/chemistry/meinwald.rearr.ircl3.html)
Abstract
A novel and easy to handle procedure for the regioselective rearrangement of epoxides has been developed, based on an iridium catalyst.
Lewis acid-promoted selective rearrangement of trisubstituted epoxides to aldehydes or ketones
Keiji Maruoka, Noriaki Murase, Ronan Bureau, Takashi Ooi and Hisashi Yamamoto
Tetrahedron 50(12), 3663-3672 (1994) (https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/pdf/epoxide2ketone.mabr.pdf)
(https://www.thevespiary.org/rhodium/Rhodium/pdf/epoxide2ketone.mabr.pdf)
Abstract
Rearrangement of trisubstituted epoxides has been effected under the influence of various Lewis acids. Among these, methylaluminum bis(4-bromo-2,6-di-tert-butylphenoxide) (MABR) can be selectively rearranged from trisubstituted epoxides to aldehydes, while antimony pentafluoride is employable for selective rearrangement to ketones under mild conditions.