Palladium-diphosphite catalysts for the asymmetric allylic substitution reactions

[structure: see text] We have designed a series of diphosphite ligands to study the effect of the backbone, the size of the chelate ring, and the substituents of the biphenyl moieties and to determine the scope of this type of ligand in the Pd-catalyzed asymmetric substitution reactions of different types of substrates. Good-to-excellent activities and enantioselectivities have been obtained for disubstituted linear substrate 11 (TOF's up to >2000 mol x (mol x h)(-1), ee values up to 99%) and cyclic substrate 14 (TOF up to 285 mol x (mol x h)(-1), ee values up to 92%). However, these ligands are inadequate for the Pd-catalyzed allylic alkylation of monosubstituted linear substrates because they provide low enantioselectivities.