Epoxide ring-opening and Meinwald rearrangement reactions of epoxides catalyzed by mesoporous aluminosilicates.

Mesoporous aluminosilicates efficiently catalyze the ring-opening of epoxides to produce beta-alkoxyalcohols in high yields under extremely mild reaction conditions. These materials also catalyze the corresponding Meinwald rearrangement in non-nucleophilic solvents to give aldehydes which can be trapped in situ to provide the corresponding acetals in an efficient tandem process.