Enantioselective Alkynylation of Benzaldehyde Catalyzed by New Chiral Lewis Acid Ligand: Zinc-Amide Complex

The enantioselective alkynylzinc addition to aldehydes is very useful for the synthesis of chiral propargyl alcohols which are important versatile building blocks of many biologically active compounds and natural products1. A series of chiral oxazolidines were conveniently synthesized from amino acids in three steps with good yields. The use of chiral Lewis acid ligand: zinc-amide complex in situ generated from this oxazolidine with alkylzinc as chiral catalysts for the enantioselective alkyny…

Enantioselective Alkynylation of Benzaldehyde Catalyzed by New Chiral Lewis Acid Ligand:Zinc-Amide Complex

The enantioselective alkynylzinc addition to aldehydes is very useful for the synthesis of chiral propargyl alcohols which are important versatile building blocks of many biologically active compounds and natural products1. A series of chiral oxazolidines were conveniently synthesized from amino acids in three steps with good yields. The use of chiral Lewis acid ligand: zinc-amide complex in situ generated from this oxazolidine with alkylzinc as chiral catalysts for the enantioselective alkynylation of benzaldehyde provides a simple, practical and inexpensive method to generate chiral propargyl alcohols with 93% ee. We report the first example of this asymmetric reaction catalyzed by a chiral Lewis acid ligand: zinc-amide complex ligand(scheme 1). A further investigation of the zinc-amide complex ligand is currently underway.