Nickel, chirality

A particularly successful approach to the catalytic hydrogenation of dialkyl ketones with hydrogen has been the use of the heterogeneous contact catalyst system - Raney nickel chirally modified with tartaric acid [18]. Here too, selectivity is enhanced by branching of the alkyl substituent in the alkyl methyl ketones (e.g., 85 % ee for the hydrogenation of isopropyl methyl ketone). With... 

Metal Complex. Complexation gas chromatography was first introduced by V. Schurig in 1980 (118) and employs transition metals (eg, nickel, cobalt, manganese or rhodium) complexed with chiral terpenoid ketoenolate ligands such as 3-ttifluoroacetyl-lR-camphorate (6),... 

The chiral catalyst was made from Raney nickel, which was prepared by addition in small portions of 3.9 g Raney nickel alloy to 40 ml water containing9 g NaOH. The mixture was kept at 100 C for 1 h, and then washed 15 times with 40 ml water. Chirality was introduced by treatment of the Raney nickel for I h at lOO C with 178 ml water adjusted to pH 3.2 with NaOH and containing 2g (S,S)-tartaric acid and 20 g NaBr. The solution was then decanted, and the modifying procedure was twice repeated. Hydrogenation over this catalyst of acetylacctone (100 atm, 100" C) in THF containing a small amount of acetic acid gave an isolated yield of chiral pentanediol of 44% (99.6% optical purity). 

However, attempts to reuse the ionic catalyst solution in consecutive batches failed. While the products could readily be isolated after the reaction by extraction with SCCO2, the active nickel species deactivated rapidly within three to four batch-wise cycles. The fact that no such deactivation was observed in later experiments with the continuous flow apparatus described below (see Figure 5.4-2) clearly indicate the deactivation of the chiral Ni-catalyst being mainly related to the instability of the active species in the absence of substrate. 

Combination of nickel bromide (or nickel acetylacetonate) and A. A -dibutylnorephcdrinc catalyzed the enantioselective conjugate addition of dialkylzincs to a./Tunsaturated ketones to afford optically active //-substituted ketones in up to ca. 50% ee53. Use of the nickel(II) bipyridyl-chiral ligand complex in acetonitrile/toluenc as an in situ prepared catalyst system afforded the //-substituted ketones 2, from aryl-substituted enones 1, in up to 90% ee54. 

Diastereoselective preparation of a-alkyl-a-amino acids is also possible using chiral Schiff base nickel(II) complexes of a-amino acids as Michael donors. The synthetic route to glutamic acid derivatives consists of the addition of the nickel(II) complex of the imine derived from (.S )-,V-[2-(phenylcarbonyl)phenyl]-l-benzyl-2-pyrrolidinecarboxamide and glycine to various activated olefins, i.e., 2-propenal, 3-phenyl-2-propenal and a,(f-unsaturated esters93- A... 

A proline derived chiral nickel complex 1 may be used instead of oe,/J-unsaturated esters of lactones modified with a chiral alcohol as the Michael acceptor. The a,(9-unsaturated acid moiety in 1 reacts with various enolates to afford complexes 2 with diastereomcric ratios of 85 15 to 95 5. Hydrolysis of the imine moiety yields the optically active /(-substituted r-alanines. A typical example is shown296. 

Zipper C, K Nickel, W Angst, H-PE Kohler (1996) Complete microbial degradation of both enantiomers of the chiral herbicide Mecoprop [(R,S)-2-(4-chloro-2-methylphenoxy)]propionic acid in an enantioselective manner by Sphingomonas herbicidovorans sp. nov. Appl Environ Microbiol 62 4318-4322. 

Among the various strategies [34] used for designing enantioselective heterogeneous catalysts, the modification of metal surfaces by chiral auxiliaries (modifiers) is an attractive concept. However, only two efficient and technically relevant enantioselective processes based on this principle have been reported so far the hydrogenation of functionalized p-ketoesters and 2-alkanons with nickel catalysts modified by tartaric acid [35], and the hydrogenation of a-ketoesters on platinum using cinchona alk oids [36] as chiral modifiers (scheme 1). 

In spite of the modest asymmetric induction it was concluded that at least one of the chiral ligands is coordinated to the nickel in the catalyticaUy active species. An alternative interpretation was given by Wilke and coworkers [29]. They could show that (methylsalicyhdene)dimethylaluminum forms a stable adduct with nickel(O) complexes. It was concluded that the asymmetric induction in Pino s experiment might be attributed to a complex in which the chiral Hgand is complexed to the Lewis acidic aluminum. 

The asymmetric nickel-catalyzed hydroalumination of prochiral terminal alkenes using adducts of BujAl and chiral amines was reported in 1981 [74], Among the different amines investigated, (-)-N,N-dimethylmenthylamine (DMMA) gave the best enantioselectivities. For example, reaction of 2,3,3-trimethyl-l-butene (39) at room temperature with 0.33 equiv. of the DMMA/iBu3Al adduct in the presence of 0.6 mol% of Ni(mesal)2 gave, after oxidation of the intermediate organoaluminum compounds, 2,3,3-trimethyl-l-butanol 40 in 76% yield and 27% ee (Scheme 2-19). 

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