Zinc Alkoxide Catalyzed Dialkylzinc Additions

In the course of the continuing study [9a,b] on the enantioselective addition of dialkylzincs to aldehydes by using chiral amino alcohols such as diphenyl(l-methyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)methanol (45) (DPMPM) [48] A. A -dibutylnorephedrine 46 (DBNE) [49], and 2-pyrrolidinyl-l-phenyl-1-propanol (47) [50] as chiral catalysts, Soai et al. reacted pyridine-3-carbaldehyde (48) with dialkylzincs using (lS,2/ )-DBNE 46, which gave the corresponding chiral pyridyl alkanols 49 with 74-86% ee (Scheme 9.24) [51]. The reaction with aldehyde 48 proceeded more rapidly (1 h) than that with benzaldehyde (16 h), which indicates that the product (zinc alkoxide of pyridyl alkanol) also catalyzes the reaction to produce itself. This observation led them to search for an asymmetric autocatalysis by using chiral pyridyl alkanol. 

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