Chiral assistance

Since the early times of stereochemistry, the phenomena related to chirality ( dis-symetrie moleculaire, as originally stated by Pasteur) have been treated or referred to as enantiomericaUy pure compounds. For a long time the measurement of specific rotations has been the only tool to evaluate the enantiomer distribution of an enantioimpure sample hence the expressions optical purity and optical antipodes. The usefulness of chiral assistance (natural products, circularly polarized light, etc.) for the preparation of optically active compounds, by either resolution or asymmetric synthesis, has been recognized by Pasteur, Le Bel, and van t Hoff. The first chiral auxiliaries selected for asymmetric synthesis were alkaloids such as quinine or some terpenes. Natural products with several asymmetric centers are usually enantiopure or close to 100% ee. With the necessity to devise new routes to enantiopure compounds, many simple or complex auxiliaries have been prepared from natural products or from resolved materials. Often the authors tried to get the highest enantiomeric excess values possible for the chiral auxiliaries before using them for asymmetric reactions. When a chiral reagent or catalyst could not be prepared enantiomericaUy pure, the enantiomeric excess (ee) of the product was assumed to be a minimum value or was corrected by the ee of the chiral auxiliary. The experimental data measured by polarimetry or spectroscopic methods are conveniently expressed by enantiomeric excess and enantiomeric... 

The reaction of 1-iodonaphthalene with chiral-assisted imide enolate ion 3 provides an interesting example of the stereoselective coupling of an aromatic radical with a nucleophile. In this reaction, the diastereomeric isomers of the substitution compound are formed (43-64%), while the seledivity observed is highly dependent on the metal counterion used and its chelation properties (Scheme 10.11). All of the ions studied (Li, Na, K, Cs, Ti(IV)) are seledive however, the highest stereoseledivity... 

Recently, chiral bis-phosphoric acid 77 bearing a new chiral scaffold with triple axial chirality assisted by intramolecular hydrogen-bonding between two phosphoric acid moieties was designed as a new chiral Bronsted acid catalyst by the Terada group [33], Application of this catalyst in the Diels-Alder reaction between substituted acroleins 66 and amido-dienes 76 produced the corresponding cycloadducts 78 with excellent enantioselectivities (Scheme 38.22). In comparison with the mono-phosphoric acid, bis-phosphoric acid 77 showed obviously higher catalytic activity and selectivity. 

Lotz, G. A., Palacios, S. M., and Rossi, R. A., Stereoselective reaction of a chiral assisted amide enolate ion with 1-iodonaphthalene by the S jj mechanism. Tetrahedron Lett., 35, 7711, 1994. 

In 1994 Yamamoto et al. developed a novel catalyst which they termed a "Brmsted acid-assisted chiral Lewis acid" (BLA) [10] (Scheme 1.14, Table 1.3). The catalyst 7 was prepared from (R)-3,3 -dihydroxyphenyl)-2,2 -dihydroxy-l,l -binaphthyl by reaction with B(OMe)3 and removal of methanol [10a, dj. The Brmsted acid is essential for both the high reactivity of the Lewis acid and the high enantioselectivity - the... 

To overcome these problems with the first generation Brmsted acid-assisted chiral Lewis acid 7, Yamamoto and coworkers developed in 1996 a second-generation catalyst 8 containing the 3,5-bis-(trifluoromethyl)phenylboronic acid moiety [10b,d] (Scheme 1.15, 1.16, Table 1.4, 1.5). The catalyst was prepared from a chiral triol containing a chiral binaphthol moiety and 3,5-bis-(trifluoromethyl)phenylboronic acid, with removal of water. This is a practical Diels-Alder catalyst, effective in catalyzing the reaction not only of a-substituted a,/ -unsaturated aldehydes, but also of a-unsubstituted a,/ -unsaturated aldehydes. In each reaction, the adducts were formed in high yields and with excellent enantioselectivity. It also promotes the reaction with less reactive dienophiles such as crotonaldehyde. Less reactive dienes such as isoprene and cyclohexadiene can, moreover, also be successfully employed in reactions with bromoacrolein, methacrolein, and acrolein dienophiles. The chiral ligand was readily recovered (>90%). 

Brmsted acid-assisted chiral Lewis acid 8 was also applied to the intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction of an a-unsubstituted triene derivative. ( , )-2,7,9-Decatrienal reacts in the presence of 30 mol% of the catalyst to afford the bicyclo compound in high yield and good enantioselectivity [lOd] (Scheme 1.17). 

Another possibility of constructing a chiral membrane system is to prepare a solution of the chiral selector which is retained between two porous membranes, acting as an enantioselective liquid carrier for the transport of one of the enantiomers from the feed solution of the racemate to the receiving side (Fig. 1-5). This system is often referred to as membrane-assisted separation. The selector should not be soluble in the solvent used for the elution of the enantiomers, whose transport is driven by a gradient in concentration or pH between the feed and receiving phases. As a drawback common to all these systems, it should be mentioned that the transport of one enantiomer usually decreases when the enantiomer ratio in the permeate diminishes. Nevertheless, this can be overcome by designing a system where two opposite selectors are used to transport the two enantiomers of a racemic solution simultaneously, as it was already applied in W-tube experiments [171]. 

Most of the chiral membrane-assisted applications can be considered as a modality of liquid-liquid extraction, and will be discussed in the next section. However, it is worth mentioning here a device developed by Keurentjes et al., in which two miscible chiral liquids with opposing enantiomers of the chiral selector flow counter-currently through a column, separated by a nonmiscible liquid membrane [179]. In this case the selector molecules are located out of the liquid membrane and both enantiomers are needed. The system allows recovery of the two enantiomers of the racemic mixture to be separated. Thus, using dihexyltartrate and poly(lactic acid), the authors described the resolution of different drugs, such as norephedrine, salbu-tamol, terbutaline, ibuprofen or propranolol. 

The instrumentation which until now has been used in chiral extraction experiments is very diverse, ranging from the simple extraction funnel [123, 180], the U-or W-tubes [171, 181], to more sophisticated devices, such as hollow-fiber extraction apparatus [175] or other membrane-assisted systems. Most of these experiments... 

For the separation of racemic mixtures, two basic types of membrane processes can be distinguished a direct separation using an enantioselective membrane, or separation in which a nonselective membrane assists an enantioselective process [5]. The most direct method is to apply enantioselective membranes, thus allowing selective transport of one of the enantiomers of a racemic mixture. These membranes can either be a dense polymer or a liquid. In the latter case, the membrane liquid can be chiral, or may contain a chiral additive (carrier). Nonselective membranes can also... 

Nonselective membranes can assist enantioselective processes, providing essential nonchiral separation characteristics and thus making a chiral separation based on enantioselectivity outside the membrane technically and economically feasible. For this purpose several configurations can be applied (i) liquid-liquid extraction based on hollow-fiber membrane fractionation (ii) liquid- membrane fractionation and (iii) micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration (MEUF). 

In the short term, we do not expect chiral membranes to find large-scale application. Therefore, membrane-assisted enantioselective processes are more likely to be applied. The two processes described in more detail (liquid-membrane fractionation and micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration) rely on established membrane processes and make use of chiral interactions outside the membrane. The major advantages of these... 

Enzyme-mediated oxidation reactions offer highly diverse options for the modification of existing functional groups as well as for the introduction of novel function in chiral catalysis. Biooxidations often enable us to obtain complementary solutions to metal-assisted transformations and organocatalysis and are considered one of the important strategies of green chemistry . 

Metal-assisted enantioselective catalytic reactions are one of the most important areas in organic chemistry [1-3]. They require the appropriate design and the preparation of chiral transition metal complexes, a field also of major importance in modern synthetic chemistry. These complexes are selected on both their ability to catalyze a given reaction and their potential as asymmetric inducers. To fulfill the first function, it is absolutely required that the catalysts display accessible metal coordination sites where reactants can bind since activation would result from a direct interaction between the metal ion... 

The first P-chiral hydroxy phosphoryl compounds that were enzymatically resolved into enantiomers were o-hydroxyaryl phosphines and their oxides 75. The resolution was achieved via enzyme-assisted hydrolysis of their O-acetyl derivatives 74, the most effective enzymes being CE and Upase from C. rugosa (CRL) (Equation 35). The highest enanfioselectivity was observed in the case of naphthyl derivatives (Equation 36), having a P=0 moiety. ... 

In collaboration with Professor Collum and coworkers, 6Li NMR (including 13C-labeled acetylene 37 and 15N-labeled chiral modifier 46 experiments) and Li aggregation studies were implemented to assist in the understanding of some of the factors responsible for the stereoselective nature of this chemistry [35],... 

The conversion of 27 to chiral hydroxy acid 26 was envisioned to arise via a sequential reduction protocol where the ketone moiety of 27 would enantioselectively be reduced to give chiral allylic cyclopentenol 46 (Scheme 7.11). Subsequent 1,4-addition of hydride to the a,/J-unsaturated ester of 46, presumably assisted by... 

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