Tetraaminophosphonium carboxylates

Tetraaminophosphonium carboxylates and phenoxides have also been developed as chiral Bronsted base catalysts for asymmetric Mannich reachons and conjugate addihons [6c, 33]. These catalysts recognized and achvated the nucleophiles through the hydrogen-bonding network (Scheme 14.10). 

In 2007, Ooi and coworkers introduced chiral tetraaminophosphonium salts as a new class of Bronsted acids [166]. Similar to the guanidine/guanidinium case, these tetraaminophosphonium salts act as Bronsted bases in their neutral/ deprotonated (triaminoiminophosphorane) form, while they can also be used as mono-functional Bronsted acids in their protonated, phosphonium form. Phos-phonium salt 67, when neutralized in situ with KO Bu, was shown to be a highly effective catalyst in the enantioselective Henry reaction of nitroalkanes with various aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes (Scheme 10.65). The same strategy was further applied to the catalytic asymmetric Henry reaction of ynals [167] and hydrophosphonylation of ynones (Scheme 10.66) [168]. Brfunctional catalysis using this scaffold were also obtained using the carboxylate salts of tetraaminophosphoniums in the direct Mannich reaction of sulfonyl imines with azlactones (Scheme 10.67) [169]. 

Newly designed chiral tetraaminophosphonium salt 184 possessing an organic anion cooperatively catalyzes asymmetric Mannich-type reaction of azlactones (182) with N-sulfonyl imines (183) (Scheme 28.20). The basic carboxylate anion deprotonates the active methine proton of the azlactone (182) to form the corresponding chiral phosphonium enolate with a defined hydrogen bonding network (ion pair), and then highly stereoselective bond formation proceeds [92]. 

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