Baylis-Hillman reaction Brpnsted acid catalysts

An NMR kinetic study of a phosphine-catalysed aza-Baylis-Hillman reaction of but-3-enone with arylidene-tosylamides showed rate-limiting proton transfer in the absence of added protic species, but no autocatalysis.175 Brpnsted acids accelerate the elimination step. Study of the effects of BINOL-phosphinoyl catalysts sheds light not only on the potential for enantioselection with such bifunctional catalysis, but also on their scope for catalysing racemization. 

Studies on catalytic asymmetric aza-Baylis-Hillman reaction has shown that the reaction involves rate-limiting proton transfer in the absence of added protic species, but exhibits no autocatalysis.41 Brpnsted acidic additives lead to substantial rate enhancements through acceleration of the elimination step. Furthermore, it has been found that phosphine catalysts, either alone or in combination with protic additives, can cause racemization of the aza-Baylis-Hillman product by proton exchange at the stereogenic centre. 

The kinetics of the aza-Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction have been studied for a range of imine substrates in various solvents, using triphenylphosphine as catalyst, and p-nitrophenol as a Brpnsted acid co-catalyst. The effects of varying the phosphineiphenol catalyst ratio on the rate indicate interdependence between them. This and the solvent effects support reversible protonation of zwitterionic intermediates within the mechanism. ip-NMR and quantum calculations also support such a route. 

The cooperative effect of Brpnsted acid catalysts and thiourea catalysts has been noticed by the Shi group (Fig. 18) [74]. In their 2007 paper on chiral thiourea-phosphine catalyzed asymmetric aza-Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction, Shi and co-workers described that when they used a freshly prepared 77-benzylidene-4-methylbenzenesulfonamide substrate, much lower yield and enantioselectivity of the aza-Morita-Baylis-Hillman product was obtained compared with their initial result when using a long-stored substrate. They subsequently found that the long-stored substrate contained a small amount of 4-methylbenzenesulfonamide and... 

Abstract The organocatalytic asymmetric Mannich reaction and the related aza-Morita-Baylis-Hillman have been reviewed. The activities in this field have been snbdivided based on the types of catalysts that have been ntilized, which includes catalysis by enamine-forming chiral amines, chiral Br0nsted bases, chiral Brpnsted acids, and phase-transfer catalysts. 

Sasai has recently described an interesting entry into chiral tetrahydropyridines 37 from acrolein and aromatic tosylimines [29], which involves an enantioselective version of a domino process previously reported by Huang [30] that can be classified as an ABB multicomponent reaction because of the participation of two molecules of acrolein, each of them with a different role in the overall transformation. The best results were obtained with catalyst 36, which contains both Lewis base and Brpnsted acid structural fragments, and the reaction was rationalized as the result of an aza Morita-Baylis-Hillman/aza Michael/aldol sequence (Scheme 3.8). 

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