Organocatalysis chiral Lewis bases

An important area of organocatalysis that was also initiated in the early 1990s has been the realm of Lewis base catalysis. ° On the basis of the noninmitive activation principle of silyl bonding rehybridization, Denmark and Iseki introduced chiral and DMF variants as effective catalysts for enantioselec-... 

With respect to the catalysts employed in conjugate additions, a big collection of efficient stable and environmentally friendly natural or newly designed chiral organocatalysts has already been developed. These catalysts are usually cheap to prepare and readily accessible in a range of quantities. They fall into four major classes Lewis bases, Lewis acids, Brpnsted bases, and Brpnsted acids [If]. The identification of the generic modes of activation of these catalysts has been crucial to the success of organocatalysis. 

Lewis base or nucleophilic catalysis by chiral amines, amine or phosphine iV-oxides, sulfides, and phosphines has been intensively exploited in asymmetric organocatalysis [122]. Representative catalysts are shown in Figure 2.27. 

Recently, a dual organocatalysis approach, namely, the combination of the achiral nucleophilic Lewis base catalyst DMAP (23) and the chiral anion-binding thiourea catalyst 27, was applied to the Steglich rearrangement to provide a,a-disubstituted amino acid derivatives 24 in a highly enantioselective fashion (Scheme 43.5) [14]. Notably, replacement of the nucleophilic codiamino acid derivatives with excellent enantiomeric excesses (88-93% ee). 

Finally in Chapters 11-13, some of the more recent discoveries that have led to a renaissance in the field of organocatalysis are described. Included in this section are the development of chiral Brdnsted acids and Lewis acidic metals bearing the conjugate base of the Bronsted acids as the ligands and the chiral bifunctional acid-base catalysts. 

Although boron is a metalloid, one can nonetheless include boron-derived compounds in a book on organocatalysis as not being transition metal containing catalysts Planar chiral boronic acids have been employed as amide couphng catalysts, actually as bifunctional Lewis acid/base activators. Whiting s [51] group reported the preparation [52] of two amino-boronic ferrocenes (see Scheme 8.17). Their use... 

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