Communications
Table 2: Asymmetric amination of nitroolefins catalyzed by (S)-2c under
Additionally, even in the further water-rich biphasic solvent
neutral conditions.[a]
system (H2O/toluene = 50:1–100:1), catalyst (S)-2c efficiently
promoted the reaction and gave an amination product with
high enantioselectivity (Table 1, entries 7 and 8).[13] The
highest enantioselectivity was attained when lower temper-
ature (08C) was employed with catalyst (S)-2c (93% ee;
Table 1, entry 9).
Other amination agents were also examined in the
asymmetric amination of b-nitrostyrene in the presence of
chiral ammonium bromide (S)-2c. The use of tert-butyl
carbamate did not give any amination product (Table 1,
entry 10). On the other hand, the reaction using N-benzyloxy-
amine proceeded smoothly and amination product was
obtained in high yield, however, with almost no selectivity
(Table 1, entry 11). The reactions with N-benzyloxytosyl-
amine or methyl benzyloxycarbamate also gave the corre-
sponding amination products with low enantioselectivities
(Table 1, entries 12 and 13). These results indicate that both a
tert-butoxycarbonyl and benzyloxy group on the nitrogen
atom of the amination agent are necessary to obtain high yield
with high selectivity.
The practicability of the present reaction was shown in
decreasing the catalyst loading of chiral ammonium bromide
(S)-2c. The reaction using only 0.05 mol% of catalyst (S)-2c
promoted the amination efficiently at room temperature, and
gave the product in high yield with high enantioselectivity
(91% yield, 90% ee; Table 1, entry 14). Further decrease of
the catalyst loading to 0.01 mol% still gave the product in
good yield (76% yield, TON 7600) and high selectivity
(91% ee) with prolonged reaction time (Table 1, entry 15).
It should be noted that the present reaction does not work
well under the ordinary phase-transfer reaction conditions
using aqueous base solutions, such as aqueous solutions of
KOH, K2CO3, and PhCOOK, and under the homogeneous
reaction conditions without aqueous solution (Scheme 2).
Entry
R
Conditions[b]
t [h]
Yield [%][c]
ee [%][d]
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Ph
Ph
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
A
B
8
36
16
36
16
36
36
72
10
68
15
72
18
72
16
48
8
91 (3a)
90 (3a)
93 (3b)
90 (3b)
91 (3c)
89 (3c)
70 (3d)
62 (3d)
94 (3e)
92 (3e)
85 (3 f)
70 (3 f)
93 (3g)
81 (3g)
90 (3h)
82 (3h)
95 (3i)
99 (3i)
97 (3j)
99 (3j)
90
93
90
91
91
94
90
93
92
95
90
91
90
94
90
93
77
82
79
83
4-MeC6H4
4-MeC6H4
4-BrC6H4
4-BrC6H4
3-FC6H4
3-FC6H4
4-TBSOC6H4
4-TBSOC6H4
2-naphthyl
2-naphthyl
2-thienyl
2-thienyl
2-furyl
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
2-furyl
(CH3)2CHCH2
(CH3)2CHCH2
tBu
32
6
17
tBu
[a] Reaction conditions: nitroolefin (0.050 mmol) and tert-butyl benzy-
loxycarbamate (0.25 mmol) in the presence of catalyst (S)-2c (0.05 or 1
mol%) in H2O (2.0 mL)/toluene (0.20 mL) at room temperature or 08C.
[b] Conditions A: (S)-2c (0.05 mol%) at room temperature (258C);
conditions B: (S)-2c (1 mol%) at 08C. [c] Yield of isolated product.
[d] Determined by HPLC on a chiral stationary phase.
loading (0.05 mol%; conditions A). The reactions of nitro-
olefins having various aromatic and heteroaromatic groups
under the conditions A gave the corresponding amination
products 3 in high enantioselectivities (90–92% ee) with good
to high yields (Table 2, entries 1–15 (odd-number entries)).
The reactions with nitroolefins possessing alkyl group gave
the products in good enantioselectivities (77–79% ee) with
high yields (Table 2, entries 17 and 19). The reactions at lower
temperature (08C) with 1 mol% of catalyst (S)-2c (condi-
tions B) slightly improved the enantioselectivities and gave
the amination products 3 in 91–95% ee for nitroolefins with
aromatic and heteroaromatic groups, and 82–83% ee for
nitroolefins with alkyl group (Table 2, entries 1–15 (even-
numbered entries)). Notably, substrates containing unstable
functional groups under basic and acidic conditions, such as
siloxy groups,[14] are tolerated in the present neutral phase-
transfer conditions (Table 2, entries 9 and 10). Furthermore,
the amination was examined in the presence of other
compounds containing base- and/or acid-sensitive functional
groups, such as 4–6, and we found that the asymmetric
amination was performed without any decomposition (e.g.
retro-aldol reaction, dehydration) and loss of stereochemical
information in the presence of compounds 4–6 under the
Scheme 2. Effect of a base and aqueous solution.
Hence, the highly enantioselective conjugate amination of
nitroolefins was only achieved when the reaction was
performed under the base-free, neutral phase-transfer con-
ditions in water-rich biphasic solvent.
With optimal reaction conditions in hand, we further
studied the generality of the asymmetric conjugate amination
to nitroolefins under the neutral conditions in the presence of
chiral bifunctional ammonium bromide (S)-2c. Two standard
reaction conditions were examined for each substrate (con-
ditions A and B in Table 2). Various types of nitroolefins were
found to be employable for the reaction with low catalyst
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Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011, 50, 5327 –5330