Chiral catalysts modified solid

Nickel and other transition metal catalysts, when modified with a chiral compound such as (R,R)-tartaric acid 5S), become enantioselective. All attempts to modify solid surfaces with optically active substances have so far resulted in catalysts of only low stereoselectivity. This is due to the fact that too many active centers of different structures are present on the surface of the catalysts. Consequently, in asymmetric hydrogenations the technique of homogeneous catalysis is superior to heterogeneous catalysis56). However, some carbonyl compounds have been hydrogenated in the presence of tartaric-acid-supported nickel catalysts in up to 92% optical purity55 . 

Enantioselective synthesis is a topic of undisputable importance in current chemical research and there is a steady flow of articles, reviews and books on almost every aspect involved. The present overview will concentrate on the application of solid chiral catalysts for the enantioselective synthesis of chiral molecules which are a special class of fine chemicals. Included is an account on our own work with the cinchona-modified Pt catalysts. Excluded is the wide field of immobilized versions of active homogeneous complexes or of bio-catalysts. During the preparation of this survey, several reviews have been found to be very informative [1-14]. 

The first successful examples of enantioselective Diels-Alder reactions catalyzed by chirally modified Lewis acids were reported by Koga [85]. The catalysts were prepared from menthol and AlEt2Cl [86]. Alumina-supported chiral menthoxy aluminum derivatives (64, 65, 66, 67) have been prepared by simple mixing of (-)-menthol, AlEt2Cl, and alumina in toluene under reflux. The reaction of methacrolein with cyclopentadiene (Eq. 20) was conducted with 67 as catalyst at -50 °C and afforded 81 % conversion with 31 % ee [87] Koga reported 57 % ee at -78 °C by use of an homogeneous catalyst [85]. Solid catalyst 69, prepared from silica gel-supported proli-nol 68 and AlEt2Cl (Eq. 21) is also an active catalyst in the same reaction, but with low enantioselectivity [87]. When the same catalyst was attached to crosslinked polystyrene (70) the ee in the reaction was lower [88]. 

Figu re 4.1 Commonly encountered chiral catalyst immobilization on dendritic polymer supports (a) core-functionalized chiral dendrimers (b) peripherally modified chiral dendrimers (c) solid-supported dendritic chiral catalysts. 

The topic of this chapter is enantioselective hydrogenation over chiral or chirally modified solid catalysts. Diastereoselective hydrogenation of chiral compounds and asymmetric hydrogenation with heterogenized (supported, embedded) homogeneous transition metal complexes will not be discussed. 

Several studies have been reported on the mechanism of chiral catalysis by modified solid catalysts. Both modifier and substrate structures play important roles. Refer to reviews by Fish and Ollis (1978), Izuma (1983), Sachtler (1985), Tai and Harada (1986), and Blaser et al. (1988) for details of various postulated mechanisms, but one particular conclusion is significant. For the cinchona-modified platinum catalyst, the presence of nitrogen is considered essential, and the configuration at Cg of the alkaloid determines which enantiomer of the product is formed. 

Chiral secondary amines attached to solid supports have also been used as a methodological approach to the development of recyclable catalysts. In these cases, cKck 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions between a modified solid support incorporating an alkyne moiety and a substituted pyrrolidine... 

A continuous microstructured reactor equipped with a perforated (5 pm) membrane is used for the investigation of the gas-liquid-solid asymmetric hydrogenation of ethylpyruvate on a Pt/y-Al203 catalyst modified with chiral inductors under... 

Separation of enantiomers by physical or chemical methods requires the use of a chiral material, reagent, or catalyst. Both natural materials, such as polysaccharides and proteins, and solids that have been synthetically modified to incorporate chiral structures have been developed for use in separation of enantiomers by HPLC. The use of a chiral stationary phase makes the interactions between the two enantiomers with the adsorbent nonidentical and thus establishes a different rate of elution through the column. The interactions typically include hydrogen bonding, dipolar interactions, and n-n interactions. These attractive interactions may be disturbed by steric repulsions, and frequently the basis of enantioselectivity is a better steric fit for one of the two enantiomers. ... 

In 1990, Choudary [139] reported that titanium-pillared montmorillonites modified with tartrates are very selective solid catalysts for the Sharpless epoxidation, as well as for the oxidation of aromatic sulfides [140], Unfortunately, this research has not been reproduced by other authors. Therefore, a more classical strategy to modify different metal oxides with histidine was used by Moriguchi et al. [141], The catalyst showed a modest e.s. for the solvolysis of activated amino acid esters. Starting from these discoveries, Morihara et al. [142] created in 1993 the so-called molecular footprints on the surface of an Al-doped silica gel using an amino acid derivative as chiral template molecule. After removal of the template, the catalyst showed low but significant e.s. for the hydrolysis of a structurally related anhydride. On the same fines, Cativiela and coworkers [143] treated silica or alumina with diethylaluminum chloride and menthol. The resulting modified material catalyzed Diels-Alder reaction between cyclopentadiene and methacrolein with modest e.s. (30% e.e.). As mentioned in the Introduction, all these catalysts are not yet practically important but rather they demonstrate that amorphous metal oxides can be modified successfully. 

Figure 6.11 Typical tridentate ligand structure incorporating a chiral amino alcohol and modified diamine-based tridentate ligand structure attached to the solid support for parallel catalyst library strategy.

The development of chiral peptide-based metal catalysts has also been studied. The group of Gilbertson has synthesized several phosphine-modified amino adds and incorporated two of them into short peptide sequences.[45J,71 They demonstrated the formation of several metal complexes, in particular Rh complexes, and reported their structure as well as their ability to catalyze enantioselectively certain hydrogenation reactions.[481 While the enantioselectivities observed are modest so far, optimization through combinatorial synthesis will probably lead to useful catalysts. The synthesis of the sulfide protected form of both Fmoc- and Boc-dicyclohexylphosphinoserine 49 and -diphenylphosphinoserine 50 has been reported, in addition to diphenylphosphino-L-proline 51 (Scheme 14).[49 To show their compatibility with solid-phase peptide synthesis, they were incorporated into hydrophobic peptides, such as dodecapeptide 53, using the standard Fmoc protocol (Scheme 15).[451 For better results, the phosphine-modified amino acid 50 was coupled as a Fmoc-protected dipeptide 56, rather than the usual Fmoc derivative 52.[471 As an illustrative example, the synthesis of diphe-nylphosphinoserine 52 is depicted in Scheme 16J45 ... 

The first reported attempts of what was then called "absolute or total asymmetric synthesis" with chiral solid catalysts used nature (naturally ) both as a model and as a challenge. Hypotheses of the origin of chirality on earth and early ideas on the nature of enzymes strongly influenced this period [15]. Two directions were tried First, chiral solids such as quartz and natural fibres were used as supports for metallic catalysts and second, existing heterogeneous catalysts were modified by the addition of naturally occuring chiral molecules. Both approaches were successful and even if the optical yields were, with few exceptions, very low or not even determined quantitatively the basic feasibility of heterogeneous enantioselective catalysis was established. 

Whereas these solid catalysts tolerate water to some extent, or even use aqueous H2O2 as the oxidant, the use of homogeneous Ti catalysts in epoxi-dation reactions often demands strictly anhydrous conditions. The homogeneous catalysts are often titanium alkoxides, possibly in combination with chiral modifiers, as in the Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation of allylic alcohols (15). There has recently been an increase in interest in supporting this enantioselective Ti catalyst. 

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