Alkylzinc addition

Lewis acid-catalyzed additions can be carried out in the presence of other chiral ligands that induce enantioselectivity.156 Titanium TADDOL induces enantioselectivity in alkylzinc additions to aldehydes. A variety of aromatic, alkyl, and a, (3-unsaturated aldehydes give good results with primary alkylzinc reagents.157... 

TADDOL 104 and 126 afford 95-99% ee in the asymmetric addition of organozinc reagents to a variety of aldehydes. The best enantioselectivities are observed when a mixture of the chiral titanium TADDOL compound 127 and excess [Ti(OPr1)4] are employed (Scheme 2-49). The mechanism of the alkylzinc addition involves acceleration of the asymmetric catalytic process by the... 

Alkylzinc addition to an aldehyde was introduced in Chapter 2. In this case, 2 mol% of DAIB catalyzes the addition of dialkylzinc to a tin containing a,ji-unsaturated aldehyde 84, giving the co-side chain 85 with 84% yield and 85% ee (Scheme 7-24). 

In conventional asymmetric catalysis, the asymmetric catalyst provides the enantioenriched product, whose structures are generally different from those of the asymmetric catalysts. In contrast, asymmetric autocatalysis is an auto-multiplication of a chiral compound P, in which the chiral product P acts as a chiral catalyst P for its own production (Scheme 2). We considered that, if the reaction product has the amino alcohol functionality as the result of alkylzinc addition, it should work as the catalyst for the next reaction, i.e., the autocatalytic reaction might proceed. 

Buhse, T. A Tentative Kinetic Model for Chiral Amplification in Autocatalytic Alkylzinc Additions. Tetrahedron Asymmetry 2003,14,1055-1061. 

There have been significant discoveries of methods that enable the enantioselective addition of an alkyne to an aldehyde or a ketone [182]. The resulting chiral propargyl alcohols are amenable to a wide variety of subsequent structural modifications and function as useful, versatile chemical building blocks. In 1994, Corey reported the enantioselective addition reactions of boryl acetylides such as 292, prepared from the corresponding stannyl acetylenes (e.g., 291) in the presence of the oxazaborolidine 293 as the chiral catalyst (Scheme 2.36) [183]. Both aliphatic and aromatic aldehydes were demonstrated to participate in these addition reactions, which proceeded in high yields and with impressive enantioselectivity. The proposed transition state model 295 is believed to involve dual activation both of the nucleophile (acetylide) and of the electrophile (aldehyde). The model bears a resemblance to the constructs previously proposed for alkylzinc addition reactions (Noyori, 153) and borane reductions (Corey. 188). 

Alkylzinc halides have also been prepared under microwave irradiation. The Reformatsky reagents (2-t-butoxy-2-oxoethyl)zinc bromide and [(2-dibenzylamino)-2-oxoethyl]zinc bromide were synthesized from the corresponding bromides via reaction with zinc in THF (Scheme 5) [24], The oxidative addition was executed at 100 °C in 5 min. The obtained reagents were subsequently used in Negishi reactions on 2-bromopyridine, 3-bromopyridine, 2-bromo-5-nitropyridine, and 2-bromo-5-trifluoromethyl-pyridine using Pd(PPh3)4 as a catalyst (Scheme 5). 

In 2004, excellent enantioselectivities of up to 98% ee were obtained by Morimoto et al. by using a phosphine-sulfonamide-containing 1,1 -binaphthyl-based ligand in the enantioselective copper-catalysed conjugate addition of ZnEt2 to several benzylideneacetones (Scheme 2.27). Similar levels of enan-tioselectivity (up to 97% ee) combined with excellent yields (up to 90%) were obtained by Leighton et al. for the copper-catalysed enantioselective addition of various alkylzincs to cyclic enones performed in the presence of other chiral phosphine-sulfonamide ligands (Scheme 2.27). ... 

The preparation and the use of several C2-symmetric disulfonamides derived from 1,2-amino alcohols in the Ti-catalysed enantioselective addition of di-alkylzinc reagents to aldehydes was described by Yus et al., in 2002. The best... 

Even if hundreds of chiral catalysts have been developed to promote the enantioselective addition of alkylzinc reagents to aldehydes with enantioselectivities over 90% ee, the addition of organozinc reagents to aldehydes is not a solved problem. For example, only very few studies on the addition of vinyl groups or acetylides and even arylzinc reagents to aldehydes have been published, in spite of the fact that the products of these reactions, chiral allylic, propargylic and aryl alcohols, are valuable chiral building blocks. 

This must reflect activation of the carbonyl group by magnesium ion, since ketones are less reactive to pure dialkylzinc reagents and tend to react by reduction rather than addition.141 The addition of alkylzinc reagents is also promoted by trimethylsilyl chloride, which leads to isolation of silyl ethers of the alcohol products.142... 

Aryl zinc reagents are considerably more reactive than alkylzinc reagents in these catalyzed additions to aldehydes.151 Within the same computational framework, phenyl transfer is found to have about a lOkcal/mol advantage over ethyl transfer.152 This is attributed to participation of the tt orbital of the phenyl ring and to the greater electronegativity of the phenyl ring, which enhances the Lewis acid character of the catalytic zinc. 

Either Cul or CuCN (10 mol %) in conjunction with BF3 and TMS-C1 catalyze addition of alkylzinc bromides to enones. 

A unique nickel-catalyzed alkylative monofunctionalization of cyclic anhydrides using dialkylzinc and diphenylzinc provided 7- or f3-keto acids (Scheme 124).323 This reaction also required the use of Ni(cod)2 or Ni(acac)2 and a bidentate ligand. As it was observed by Knochel in the reactions of dialkylzinc with alkyl iodides (vide infra), addition of an electron-deficient alkene,324 for example, 4-fluoromethylstyrene, accelerated the rate of the reaction and increased the yield of the desired products. The alkylzinc reagents BuZnBr and Et02CCH2CH2ZnBr also reacted with anhydrides, although the yields were lower. 

Primary and secondary alkylzinc iodides and benzylic zinc halides also undergo Ni-catalyzed reactions with various primary alkyl iodides and bromides.407-409 According to the procedure by Knochel and co-workers, the transformations with alkylzinc iodides, which are less reactive than the corresponding dialkylzincs, require the presence of two additives Bu4NI and 4-fluorostyrene (Scheme 155).407,408... 

Hoveyda and co-workers presented the asymmetric addition of alkylzincs to small-, medium-, and large-ring nitroolefins with chiral peptide-based phosphines 57 as catalyst.87 The enantioselectivities were typically >90%. Ligand 57 also worked well in the asymmetric addition of dialkylzinc to acyclic disubstituted nitroalkenes (up to 95% ee Scheme 26).88... 

Scheme 6.16. Zr-catalyzed enantioselective addition of alkylzinc reagents to imines utilizes peptidic ligands and can be used to prepare a variety of aromatic amines in high optical purity.

A number of groups have reported the preparation and in situ application of several types of dendrimers with chiral auxiliaries at their periphery in asymmetric catalysis. These chiral dendrimer ligands can be subdivided into three different classes based on the specific position of the chiral auxiliary in the dendrimer structure. The chiral positions may be located at, (1) the periphery, (2) the dendritic core (in the case of a dendron), or (3) throughout the structure. An example of the first class was reported by Meijer et al. [22] who prepared different generations of polypropylene imine) dendrimers which were substituted at the periphery of the dendrimer with chiral aminoalcohols. These surface functionalities act as chiral ligand sites from which chiral alkylzinc aminoalcoholate catalysts can be generated in situ at the dendrimer periphery. These dendrimer systems were tested as catalyst precursors in the catalytic 1,2-addition of diethylzinc to benzaldehyde (see e.g. 13, Scheme 14). 

More recently, we have discovered that Pd-JOSIPHOS complexes effectively desymmetrize a variety of succinic anhydrides in excellent yield and enantio-selectivity [Eq. (10.54)]. The reaction proceeds at ambient temperature in some cases and can deliver aryl and alkylzinc reagents with equal facility. For reasons that are unclear, the latter protocol requires a styrenic additive for high enantioselectivity ... 

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