Dendritic chirality effect

Mention of chirality in dendritic architectures can be traced back to patents of Denkewalter et al., which describe the construction of peptide-like dendritic structures from L-lysine units [1]. In spite of the demanding nature of some of these syntheses, numerous chiral dendritic structures have meanwhile been prepared and characterised [2]. This cannot be explained solely by the somewhat academic interest in the effect of chiral monomeric building blocks on the chirality of the overall molecule. The prospect of using chiral dendrimers as model... 

Measurements of molar rotation showed that this parameter is almost proportional to the number of chiral binaphthyl units and the molar rotation per binaphthyl unit varies only slightly. On catalysis of the Diels-Alder reaction of cyclopentadiene with 3-[(E)-but-2-enoyl]oxazolidin-2-one the branched catalysts 7 and 8 showed an approximately 25% higher reactivity than the monofunctional catalyst 6 however, the former led to just a slight improvement of ee and endo-selectivity compared to 6. It is thus inappropriate to speak of a dendritic effect on catalysis, although one does indeed exist in relation to the chiroptical properties. 

Abstract Enantioselection in a stoichiometric or catalytic reaction is governed by small increments of free enthalpy of activation, and such transformations are thus in principle suited to assessing dendrimer effects which result from the immobilization of molecular catalysts. Chiral dendrimer catalysts, which possess a high level of structural regularity, molecular monodispersity and well-defined catalytic sites, have been generated either by attachment of achiral complexes to chiral dendrimer structures or by immobilization of chiral catalysts to non-chiral dendrimers. As monodispersed macromolecular supports they provide ideal model systems for less regularly structured but commercially more viable supports such as hyperbranched polymers, and have been successfully employed in continuous-flow membrane reactors. The combination of an efficient control over the environment of the active sites of multi-functional catalysts and their immobilization on an insoluble macromolecular support has resulted in the synthesis of catalytic dendronized polymers. In these, the catalysts are attached in a well-defined way to the dendritic sections, thus ensuring a well-defined microenvironment which is similar to that of the soluble molecular species or at least closely related to the dendrimer catalysts themselves. 

The majority of studies into the catalytic behaviour of dendrimers with chiral catalytic centres at the periphery of the dendritic support have concerned non-phosphine-based catalysts. As has become apparent in these studies, the effect of the dendrimer fixation on the catalytic performance generally depends on the individual system. Factors such as the high local density of catalytic sites, the interaction of functional groups in the dendrimer backbone with the catalysts and the structural rigidity or flexibility of the dendrimers seem to play a role in many cases. 

On the basis of the same principles, Pu et al. have synthesized a chiral dendritic compond (52) (Chart 10) which shows fluorescence quenching upon binding of amino alcohols. An enantioselective response was observed on addition of a number of amino alcohols the most significant effect was obtained with phenylalaninol.165... 

C-O-C groups rather than connected with the CH2 subunits of the dendritic branches. The VCD results support the explanation of the observed induced circular dichroism effect as a consequence of the chiral arrangement of the inherently achiral benzene rings within the dendritic branches that was induced by the chiral center. 

In this chapter, we attempt to summarize the recently developed chiral dendrimer catalysts with their chiral catalytically active species located either at the core or at the periphery of the dendritic macromolecular supports. The discussion will also be focused on dendrimer effects and the development of new methodologies for the recovery and reuse of chiral dendrimer catalysts, with special emphasis on their applications in enantioselective synthesis. The published data have been classified according to the type of reachon in each of the following three sections. 

Brunner s concept (dendrizyme) of attaching dendrihc chiral wedges to a catalytically achve achiral metal complex represents the first example of asymmetric catalysis using a core-funchonalized dendrimer catalyst [21]. In view of the extremely poor asymmetric induction effected by the chiral dendritic shucture, the bulk of the attenhon has been focused on the immobilizahon of the well-established chiral hgands and/or their metal complexes into an achiral dendrimer core. The important early examples included TADDOL-centered chiral dendrimers, which were reported by Seebach et al. in 1999 [28]. In this section, we ahempt to summarize the recently reported chiral core-funchonalized dendrimers with special emphasis on their applications in asymmetric synthesis. 

Recently, Soai et al. reported the synthesis of series of chiral dendrimer amino alcohol ligands based on PAMAM, hydrocarbon and carbosilane dendritic backbones (Figure 4.31) [99-102]. These chiral dendrimers were used as catalysts for the enantioselective addition of dialkylzincs to aldehydes and N-diphenylphosphi-nylimines (Scheme 4.25). The molecular structures of the dendrimer supports were shown to have a significant influence on the catalytic properties. The negative dendrimer effect for the PAMAM-bound catalysts was considered due to the fact that the nitrogen and oxygen atoms on the dendrimer skeleton could coordinate to zinc. 

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