Guanidine catalysis Michael reactions

Ishikawa and co-workers also reported a class of structurally modified guanidines for promotion of the asymmetric Michael reaction of ierf-butyl-diphenylimino-acetate to ethyl acrylate [124,125]. In addition to a polymer support design (Scheme 69), an optical resolution was developed to achieve chiral 1,2-substituted ethylene-l,2-di-amines, a new chiral framework for guanidine catalysis. The authors discovered that incorporating steric bulk and aryl substituents in the catalyst did improve stereoselec-tivitity, although the reactivity did suffer (Scheme 70, Table 4). 

Ye, W., Jiang, Z., Zhao, Y. et a/. (2007) Chiral bicyclic guanidine as a versatile Brdnsted base catalyst for the enantioselective Michael reactions of dithiomalonates and P-keto thioesters. Advanced Synthesis and Catalysis, 349, 2454-2458. 

---