Thiourea catalysis, bifunctional

Kokotos and coworkers investigated the use of prolinamide-based thioureas as bifunctional organocatalysts for the direct aldol reaction. The amide and the thiourea functionalities, tethered by a chiral diamine motif, offered multiple hydrogen bonding sites for electrophile activation, while the pyrrolidine skeleton served to activate the nucleophile via enamine catalysis. Thiourea 61 proved to provide the best catalyst in the presence of 4-nitrobenzoic acid as cocatalyst at low temperature and delivered the anti-aXAoX products in moderate to high yields and in high to excellent... 

FIGURE 2.41. Takemoto s (A) and Papai s (B) alternative transition states for the bifunctional amine-thiourea catalysis of Michael addition to nitroolelins. 

Scheme 6.99 Typical pyridyl- and imidazoyl-thioureas evaluated for bifunctional catalysis in the asymmetric Strecker reaction of aldimines.

The Tsogoeva group, in 2006, reported the introduction of newly designed bifunctional secondary amine-functionalized proline-based thioureas (95 and 96) and the primary amine-functionalized thioureas (97-99) for catalysis of the asymmetric addition of ketones to trans-P-nitrostyrenes (Figure 6.30) [260, 261]. Using... 

Scheme 6.102 Bifunctional catalysis with primary amine thiourea 99 Proposed transition states to explain the onfi-diastereoselectivity (A) and the syn- diastereoselectivity (B) of the Michael addition of both acylic and cyclic ketones to frans-P-nitrostyrene.

In the presence of thiourea catalyst 122, the authors converted various (hetero) aromatic and aliphatic trons-P-nitroalkenes with dimethyl malonate to the desired (S)-configured Michael adducts 1-8. The reaction occurred at low 122-loading (2-5 mol%) in toluene at -20 to 20 °C and furnished very good yields (88-95%) and ee values (75-99%) for the respective products (Scheme 6.120). The dependency of the catalytic efficiency and selectivity on both the presence of the (thio) urea functionality and the relative stereochemistry at the key stereogenic centers C8/C9 suggested bifunctional catalysis, that is, a quinuclidine-moiety-assisted generation of the deprotonated malonate nucleophile and its asymmetric addition to the (thio)urea-bound nitroalkene Michael acceptor [279]. 

Scheme 6.139) [293]. Ricci and co-workers explained the outcome of their aza-Michael reaction with the mechanistic picture visualized in Scheme 6.140 C9-epi-QN -derived thiourea 121 displayed a bifunctional mode of catalysis, which simultaneously activated both the chalcone Michael acceptor and the donor O-benzylhydroxylamine through explicit hydrogen bonding. 

Scheme 6.146 Representative adducts obtained from the asymmetric Henry reaction between nitromethane and (hetero)aromatic aldehydes under bifunctional catalysis of C6 -thiourea-functionalized cinchona alkaloid 131.

A bifunctional iminiumyhydrogen-bonding catalysis has been very recently employed for the first enantioselective organocatalytic conjugate addition of a phosphorous nucleophile (diarylphosphane oxides) to a,ji-unsaturated ketones [370]. The process, which allows efficient additions to cyclic and linear enones as well as the generation of quaternary stereocenters, is catalyzed by quinine-derived thiourea... 

Later, Melchiorre and coworkers accomplished a challenging direct vinylogous aldol reaction of 3-methyl-2-(yclohexen-l-one with a-keto esters utilising a bifunctional primary amine-thiourea. Catalyst 48 based on the (l/ ,2/ )Kiiphenylethylene-l,2-diamine backbone combined with benzoic acid as cocatalyst promoted the reaction by means of a concomitant activation of both reacting partners (see TS in Scheme 19.55), the ketone via dienamine catalysis and the ester via hydrogen-bonding interactions (Scheme 19.55). 

Enantioselective organocatalytic a-chlorination of aldehydes, via enamine catalysis, was independently reported by the groups of MacMillan and Jprgensen in 2004 (Scheme 13.20) [46, 47]. MacMillan utilized his imidazolidinone catalyst and a perchlorinated quinone as the chlorine source, to obtain the S-enantiomer of the a-chloroaldehyde products. Jprgensen employed NCS as the chlorine source, and either a prolinamide catalyst to access the / -enantiomer of the a-chloroaldehyde products, or a Ci-symmetric amine catalyst to access the 5-enantiomer. A recyclable fluorous pyrrolidine-thiourea bifunctional organocatalyst was later employed as an enamine catalyst in this transformation [48]. 

A review has illustrated the importance of atomic-level DFT studies in elucidation of the function of hydrogen bonds in organocatalytic reactions through influence on the mechanism of substrate activation and orientation, and the stabilization of transition states and intermediates. Examples discussed include stereoselective catalysis by bifunctional thioureas, solvent catalysis by fluorinated alcohols in epoxidation by hydrogen peroxide, and intra-molecular cooperative hydrogen bonding in trans-a,a -(dimethyl-l,3-dioxolane-4,5-diyl)bis(diphenyl methanol) (TADDOL) (7)-type catalysts. ... 

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