Study on the synthesis of (+)-oxocamphor

(+)-Oxocamphor is a metabolite of (+)-camphor in vivo, which is used to treat heart failure in clinic. However the present synthetic method has problems of long reaction time, serious pollution and low yield. In this paper we report an efficient synthesis of (+)-oxocamphor was reported via bromination, reduction, esterification, hydrolysis and oxidation using (+)-camphor as starting material. All the intermediates and (+)-oxocamphor were confirmed by ¹H NMR, IR and GC-MS. The absolute configuration of 3,9-dibromocamphor was also ascertained by X-ray diffraction analysis. The overall yield of these 6-step procedures was about 10%.