Synthesis, asymmetric chiral from achiral

In recent years the synthesis of chiral and achiral tripodal phosphines and their application in homogeneous catalysis has been studied in more detail [2]. Enantiomerically pure tripodal ligands were synthesized from the corresponding trichloro compounds and chiral, cyclic lithio-phosphanes, e.g. 17, (Scheme 6) [21,22], Using a rhodium(I) complex of ligand 18, an enantiomeric excess of 89 % was obtained in the asymmetric hydrogenation reaction of methyl acetami-docinnamate (19). 

A new strategy for the predictable creation of new chiral centres and its application to the synthesis of sugars and macrocycles is presented in a review on the use of double asymmetric induction in the aIdol condensation, the Diels Alder cycloaddition, epoxidation and hydrogenation. Two approaches to the construction of appropriately functionalised six-carbon chains are outlined in a review on the dg novo synthesis of carbohydrates from achiral precursors (i), hetero-Diels Alder reaction with inverse... 

In a catalytic asymmetric reaction, a small amount of an enantio-merically pure catalyst, either an enzyme or a synthetic, soluble transition metal complex, is used to produce large quantities of an optically active compound from a precursor that may be chiral or achiral. In recent years, synthetic chemists have developed numerous catalytic asymmetric reaction processes that transform prochiral substrates into chiral products with impressive margins of enantio-selectivity, feats that were once the exclusive domain of enzymes.56 These developments have had an enormous impact on academic and industrial organic synthesis. In the pharmaceutical industry, where there is a great emphasis on the production of enantiomeri-cally pure compounds, effective catalytic asymmetric reactions are particularly valuable because one molecule of an enantiomerically pure catalyst can, in principle, direct the stereoselective formation of millions of chiral product molecules. Such reactions are thus highly productive and economical, and, when applicable, they make the wasteful practice of racemate resolution obsolete. 

Even starting from achiral molecules it is in some systems possible to achieve crystallization in a chiral structure. Perhaps one of the most striking achievements in organic solid-state chemistry has been the trapping of the chirality of such a crystal as the chirality of the stable product of chemical reactions in the crystal. Such asymmetric synthesis has been reviewed (255), and a recent book (256) also provides a thorough discussion of chirality in crystals. The related and fascinating topic of the chemical consequences of the presence of a polar axis in some organic crystals has also been reviewed (257). 

That chiral molecules can be produced in a CPL field, either from achiral precursors by photo-activated synthesis or by preferential chiral photodestruction of a racemic mixture, is now well demonstrated and has been reviewed. [46] In all cases currently known, however, such processes have proved very inefficient. For example, asymmetric photochemical ring-closures of achiral helicene precursors induced by CPL have produced only about 0.2% e.e. in the products. Likewise, the CPL-induced photolysis of racemic camphor produced about 20 % e.e., but only after 99% photodestruction, and photolysis of D.L-glutamic acid produced only 0.22 % e.e. after 52 % photodecomposition. [71]... 

Spontaneous absolute asymmetric synthesis, that is the statistical formation of enantioenriched compounds from achiral reagents without the intervention of any chiral auxiliary, has been proposed as one of the origins of chirality. Without using... 

Optically active aldehydes are available in abundance from amino and hydroxy acids or from carbohydrates, thereby providing a great variety of optically active nitrile oxides via the corresponding oximes. Unfortunately, sufficient 1,4- or 1,3-asymmetric induction in cycloaddition to 1-alkenes or 1,2-disubstituted alkenes has still not been achieved. This represents an interesting problem that will surely be tackled in the years to come. On the other hand, cycloadditions with achiral olefins lead to 1 1 mixtures of diastereoisomers, that on separation furnish pure enantiomers with two or more stereocenters. This process is, of course, related to the separation of racemic mixtures, also leading to both enantiomers with 50% maximum yield for each. There has been a number of applications of this principle in synthesis. Chiral nitrile oxides are stereochemicaUy neutral, and consequently 1,2-induction from achiral alkenes can fully be exploited (see Table 6.10). 

The third approach is the main topic of this volume. According to the definition given above it involves enantiomerically pure starting materials which at some point must be provided by resolution or ex-chiral-pool synthesis. It is more or less equivalent to the term asymmetric synthesis defined by Marckwald in 19047 as follows Asymmetric syntheses are those reactions which produce optically active substances from symmetrically constituted compounds with the intermediate use of optically active materials but with the exclusion of all analytical processes . In today s language, this would mean that asymmetric syntheses are those reactions, or sequences of reactions, which produce chiral nonracemic substances from achiral compounds with the intermediate use of chiral nonracemic materials, but excluding a separation operation. 

Despite growing importance of axially chiral biaryls as chiral auxiliaries in asymmetric synthesis, direct synthetic methods accessing to the enantiomerically enriched biaryls from achiral precursors are still very rare, Application of asymmetric cross-coupling to construction of the chiral biaryls is one of the most exciting strategies to this goal. The reported application... 

In asymmetric synthesis, a chiral compound is synthesized from an achiral precursor in such a way that the formation of one enantiomer predominates over the other.23 The asymmetry of the reaction is induced by the presence of a diastereomeric complex and is a result of the formation of two distinct diastereomeric transition states separated in energy by the amount AAG >0. The ratio of the rate constants for the formation of the two enantiomers, kR and ks, is related to AAG according to equation (2.1.1 ).25 Assuming a kinetically controlled reaction, the kR/ks ratio will be reflected in the relative amount of each enantiomer formed. 

Abstract The addition of diisopropylzinc to prochiral pyrimidine carbaldehydes (Soai reaction) is the only known example of spontaneous asymmetric synthesis in organic chemistry. It serves as a model system for the spontaneous occurrence of chiral asymmetry from achiral initial conditions. This review describes the possible kinetic origin of specific experimental features of this reaction. It is shown that generic kinetic models, including enantioselective autocatalysis and mutual inhibition between the enantiomers,... 

Chiral crystals generated from non-chiral molecules have served as reactants for the performance of so-called absolute asymmetric synthesis. The chiral environments of such crystals exert asymmetric induction in photochemical, thermal and heterogeneous reactions [41]. Early reports on successful absolute asymmetric synthesis include the y-ray-induced isotactic polymerization of frans-frans-l,3-pentadiene in an all-frans perhydropheny-lene crystal by Farina et al. [42] and the gas-solid asymmetric bromination ofpjp -chmethyl chalcone, yielding the chiral dibromo compound, by Penzien and Schmidt [43]. These studies were followed by the 2n + 2n photodimerization reactions of non-chiral dienes, resulting in the formation of chiral cyclobutanes [44-48]. In recent years more than a dozen such syntheses have been reported. They include unimolecular di- r-methane rearrangements and the Nourish Type II photoreactions [49] of an achiral oxo- [50] and athio-amide [51] into optically active /Mactams, photo-isomerization of alkyl-cobalt complexes [52], asymmetric synthesis of two-component molecular crystals composed from achiral molecules [53] and, more recently, the conversion of non-chiral aldehydes into homochiral alcohols [54,55]. 

Absolute asymmetric synthesis using the chiral crystal environment photochemical hydrogen abstraction from achiral acyclic monothioimides in the solid state. Journal of Organic Chemistry, 60 (22), 7088-7089 ... 

Chiral Lewis acids have been employed by Yamamoto et al. [197 -199] in order to carry out enantioselective aza Diels-Alder reactions starting from achiral substrates however, these transformations required stoichiometric amounts of the chiral mediator 3-16 which was generated in situ from (fl)-binaphthol and triphenylborate. The best results were obtained with the pyridine derivative 3-14 which afforded the desired cycloadduct 3-15 in high optical purity (Fig. 3-5). Using chiral imines, the authors found a high level of double asymmetric induction, and this methodology could be applied to the enantioselective total synthesis of two piperidine alkaloids. 

Chiral polymers have been applied in many areas of research, including chiral separation of organic molecules, asymmetric induction in organic synthesis, and wave guiding in non-linear optics [ 146,147]. Two distinct classes of polymers represent these optically active materials those with induced chirality based on the catalyst and polymerization mechanism and those produced from chiral monomers. Achiral monomers like propylene have been polymerized stereoselectively using chiral initiators or catalysts yielding isotactic, helical polymers [148-150]. On the other hand, polymerization of chiral monomers such as diepoxides, dimethacrylates, diisocyanides, and vinyl ethers yields chiral polymers by incorporation of chirality into the main chain of the polymer or as a pedant side group [151-155]. A number of chiral metathesis catalysts have been made, and they have proven useful in asymmetric ROM as well as in stereospecific polymerization of norbornene and norbornadiene [ 156-159]. This section of the review will focus on the ADMET polymerization of chiral monomers as a method of chiral polymer synthesis. 

Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation ° is an enantioselective epoxidation of an allylic alcohol with ferf-butyl hydroperoxide (f-BuOOH), titanium tetraisopropoxide [Ti(0-fPr)4] and (-b)- or (—)-diethyl tartrate [(-b)- or (—)-DET] to produce optically active epoxide from achiral allylic alcohol. The reaction is diastereoselective for a-substituted allylic alcohols. Formation of chiral epoxides is an important step in the synthesis of natural products because epoxides can be easily converted into diols and ethers. 

A very elegant asymmetric synthesis of D-ribose from achiral starting materials has been presented by Mukaiyama and coworkers [36]. It is based on the cross-aldolization of crotonaldehyde and enoxysilane 74 in the presence of an enantiomerically pure diamine 75, the chiral inducer (Scheme 13.33). High diastereoselectivity anti syn > 98 2) and high... 

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