Boron enolates Ph2BOH

A kinetic study of the Ph2BOH-catalysed reactions of several aldehydes with 2 revealed that the rate of the disappearance of 2 followed first-order kinetics and was independent from the reactivity of the aldehydes used. Taking into account this result, we have proposed the reaction mechanism in which a silyl enol ether is transformed to the corresponding diphenylboryl enolate before the aldol addition step takes place (Scheme 13.1). The high diastereoselectivity is consistent with the mechanism, in which the aldol step proceeds via a chair-like six-membered transition state. The opposite diastereoselectivity in the reaction with the geometrical isomers of the thioketene silyl acetal shown in Table 13.3 also supports the mechanism via the boron enolate, because this trend was also observed in the classical boron enolate-mediated reactions in dry organic solvents. Although we have not yet observed the boron enolates directly under the reaction conditions, this mechanism can explain all of the experimental data obtained and is considered as the most reasonable one. As far as we know, this is the first example of... 

In 1993, a tris(pentafluorophenyl)boron was first recognized by Yamamoto and co-workers as a water-tolerant Lewis acid catalyst in the aldol reaction of silyl enol ethers (237). Subsequently, Kobayashi and co-workers developed the first strategy for catalytic generation of boron enolates, employing catalytic amount of diphenylborinic acid (Ph2BOH) to promote the Mukaiyama aldol reaction in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) (Scheme 59). The authors presumed that the active species of the reactions are boron enolates. Perhaps it is the first example of catalytic use of a boron source in boron enolatemediated diastereoselective aldol reactions (238). 

Boron has been shown to be an efficient catalyst. Various aldehydes and silyl enol ethers afforded the corresponding syn-substituted /3-hydroxyketones in high diastereoselectivities (80-94% de) when the reaction was performed in water with 10 mol% Ph2BOH, surfactant (SDS), and a Bronsted acid (Scheme 8.6). A mechanism involving a boron enolate intermediate generated by a silicon/metal exchange was proposed the improvement observed in the presence of benzoic acid could be due to an increase of the rate of the Si/B exchange. ... 

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