1.2- diamines, chiral monotosylated

A wide range of metals and ligand combinations have been demonstrated to effect the ATH reaction and in this book we concentrate on the systems that have demonstrated high activities and ees that would be the requirement of an industrial application. The initial breakthrough in this area came in 1995 with the report from Ohkuma et alP on the use of chiral monotosylated diamine complexes for asymmetric transfer hydrogenation. 

Recent refinements in hydride transfer reductions have enhanced the utility of oxazaborolidine- and BINAP-Ru (II) complex-catalyzed reductions. A review by Wills describes the development of catalysts for the syntheses of chiral nonracemic secondary alcohols from aryl ketones [5]. Among the more interesting catalysts discussed were f/ -arene ruthenium complexes, which utilize diamine and monotosylated diamine ligands. 

In 1996, Noyori and co-workers discovered that Ru(II) ri-arene complexes containing either a chiral 1,2-amino alcohol such as in 41 or a chiral N-monotosylated 1,2-diamine ligand, see 42, serve as excellent catalysts. It was a breakthrough for catalytic ATH reactions to ketones in terms of enantioselectivities, catalyst loading and... 

Fig. 17. Noyori s ATH system using ruthenium complexes of chiral 1,2-amino alcohols 41 and monotosylated 1,2-diamines 42, respectively.

To improve the rate of reduction the amino alcohol ligand of the ruthenium complexes was exchanged for monotosylated 1,2-diamine ligands. For exploratory experiments AT-tosylethane-1,2-diamine was prepared hy monotosylation of ethane-1,2-diamine and attached to the primary face of P-CD yielding 80. With P-CD as the only chiral unit the ruthenium complex of 80 could reduce aromatic and aliphatic standard ketones 63 and 69 in 91% 5deld, 25% ee (S) and 68% 5deld, 58% ee, respectively, within only 4h under standard conditions (Fig. 24). 

However, the most employed half-sandwich complexes with chiral chelating ligands were reported by Noyori et who designed a new type of active and robust Ru(II) catalyst precursors based on complexes of monotosylated diamines. The structure of one of these catalyst precursors 3.21 was determined by X-ray analysis and showed that the metal has (R) configuration (see Figure 3.6). 

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