Synthesis of novel tartaric acid-derived chiral phosphite ligands and their application in the Cu-catalyzed conjugate addition of diethylzinc to cyclic enones

Abstract

Five novel tropos (3R,4R)- and/or (3S,4S)-N-benzyltartarimide-derived biphenylphosphite ligands were synthesized and applied in the Cu-catalyzed asymmetric conjugate addition of diethylzinc to cyclic enones with up to 75% e.e. Compared with the reported ligand 1-N-benzylpyrrolidine-3,4-bis[(R)-1,1’-binaphthyl-2,2’-diyl]phosphite-L-tartaric acid, the issue that L-(+)-tartaric acid backbone and (R)-binaphthyl showed strong matched/mismatched character was solved with these tropos ligands. It was found that the enantioselectivity was mainly controlled by the absolute configuration of N-benzyltartarimide backbone, and both enantiomers of the addition products can be obtained by simply changing the configuration of N-benzyltartarimide substituent.