Catalyst-driven enantioselective reactions

On the basis of the observed stereoinduction trend, the addition of HCN took place over the diaminocyclohexane portion of the catalyst away from the amino acid and amide unit. The last hypothesis led to the prediction that a more sterically demanding amino acid or amide unit (Figure 6.14) could additionally favor the cyanide attack compared to the less bulky diaminocyclohexane unit and thus making the Schiff base catalyst more enantioselective in Strecker reactions of aldimines and ketimines. To evaluate this perspechve, the authors performed a model-(mechanism-) driven systematic structure optimizations by stepwise modification of the amide, the amino acid, and the (thio)urea unit of catalyst 42 and examined these derivatives of 42 (lmol% loading ) in the model Strecker reaction (toluene ... 

Dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) is an extension to the kinetic resolution process, in which an enantioselective catalyst is usually used in tandem with a chemoselective catalyst. The chemoselective catalyst is used to racemize the starting material of the kinetic resolution process whilst leaving the product unchanged. As a consequence, the enantioselective catalyst is constantly supplied with fresh fast-reacting enantiomer so that the process can be driven to theoretical yields of up to 100 %. There are special cases where the starting material spontaneously racemizes under the reaction conditions and so a second catalyst is not required. 

The Michael reaction is known to be driven by basic catalysts, and accordingly, the surface OH and sites of these oxide crystals are expected to trigger the reaction. Although both NAP-MgO and NA-MgO possess defined shapes and the same average concentrations of surface OH groups, a possible rationale for the higher rate of reaction by NAP-MgO is the presence of more surface Mg (Lewis acid) ions (20%)." The acid-base interactions of the Mg + ions (Lewis acid) of NAP-MgO and the basic chiral auxiliary may also influence the enantioselectivity. 

Very recently, driven by the curiosity of how DNA induces enantioselectivity, Sugiyama and co-workers performed an intramolecular AFC alkylation with a DNA-based hybrid catalyst (Scheme 6.41). In their studies, an elemental binding model was proposed based on their experimental results. These investigations show promise for understanding relationships between the helical chirality of DNA and the enantioselectivity of the chemical reaction. 

Asymmetric transfer hydrogenation (ATH) reactions of 2-substituted a-alko gr-p-ketophosphonates (602) driven by dynamic kinetic resolution, afforded the corresponding 2-substituted a-alko gr-p-hydroxyphos-phonates (603) with excellent levels of diastereo- and enantioselectivity (Scheme 175). The reactions have been promoted by using chiral ruthenium catalyst (604) and a 0.2 1 mixture of formic acid and triethylamine as the hydrogen source and solvent. ... 

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