Angewandte
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Chemie
Cooperative Catalysis
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An Aluminum Fluoride Complex with an Appended Ammonium Salt
as an Exceptionally Active Cooperative Catalyst for the Asymmetric
Carboxycyanation of Aldehydes
Dedicated to Professor Yoshito Kishi on the occasion of his 80th birthday
loadings,[10] for carboxycyanations, the turnover numbers
(TONs) are lower, with catalyst loadings usually in the
range of 1–10 mol%.[2a,11] As a general
À
Abstract: Al F bonds are among the most stable s bonds
À
known, exhibiting an even higher bond energy than Si F
bonds. Despite a stability advantage and a potentially high
À
Lewis acidity of Al F complexes, they have not been described
as structurally defined catalysts for enantioselective reactions.
trend, cooperative catalysis has proven
to be beneficial for both carboxy- and
We show that Al F salen complexes with appended ammoni-
carbocyanations.[12–14]
À
um moieties give exceptional catalytic activity in asymmetric
carboxycyanations. In addition to aromatic aldehydes, enal
and aliphatic substrates are well accepted. Turnover numbers
up to around 104 were achieved, whereas with previous
catalysts 101–102 turnovers were typically attained. In contrast
In this Communication, we report
a new strategy for the carboxycyanation
of aldehydes, which permits unprece-
dented TONs.[2] In our approach,
a Lewis acid catalyst cooperates with
to Al Me and Al Cl salen complexes, the analogous Al F
species are remarkably stable towards air, water, and heat, and
can be recovered unchanged after catalysis. They possess
a considerably increased Lewis acidity as shown by DFT
calculations.
an internal ammonium salt moiety.[15]
À
À
À
The study was driven by the idea that
a “naked” cyanide would facilitate the 1,2-addition to
a simultaneously activated aldehyde while the ammonium
should promote a face-selective attack.[15] Key for the high
À
catalyst efficiency is a robust Al F unit that provides an
extraordinarily stable and active catalyst.
A
symmetric 1,2-additions of cyanide to aldehydes have been
intensively studied because the enantioenriched cyanohydrin
products are valuable chiral building blocks.[1–3] Although it is
industrially employed in enzymatic processes,[4,5] the direct
use of HCN is difficult for safety reasons and thus less volatile
HCN equivalents are often utilized, in particular trimethyl-
silyl cyanide and ethyl cyanoformate.[2,6,7] Whereas addition
of HCN is reversible, the O-protected products formed from
Initial experiments (0.1 mmol scale) were conducted with
ligands like 4 (5 mol%), which bear two ammonium units
(Table 1, entry 1). The Al catalysts were formed in situ using
AlMe3. However, activity and ee were poor in CH2Cl2 at
À508C. To improve the catalyst solubility, ligand 5 was
studied, which bears a single ammonium unit (entry 2). The
reactivity was massively improved by using KCN as an
additive, which also has a positive impact on the ee (entry 3).
A further ee enhancement was achieved with ligand 6, which
has a Et2MeN+CH2 residue (entry 4), and with BF4À as XÀ in 7
(entry 5). The influence of longer linkers between the salen
core and the ammonium group were studied (entries 6 and 7),
and the best results were obtained with the (CH2)3 unit in
ligand 9.
=
TMSCN and EtO(C O)CN are stable towards the reverse
reaction and hence less prone to racemization.[2] On a pro-
=
duction scale, the use of EtO(C O)CN appears more
attractive for practical, safety, and cost reasons.[8] The
installed carboxy groups were also used for elegant further
transformations like [3,3]-rearrangements.[9]
Although very active catalysts have been developed that
can be applied to cyanosilylations with very small catalyst
“Non-nucleophilic” counterions XÀ initially had an unex-
pected impact. With triflate in ligand 10 (and also PF6 ) in
À
place of BF4À, the enantioselectivity was nearly completely
lost (entry 8). In contrast, when using ligand 10 but with
Me2AlCl for complexation, it was largely regained (entry 9).
Solvent screening using the catalyst formed from 9 and AlMe3
revealed that slightly better enantioselectivity is attained in
CHCl3. The amount of 2 and KCN could then be lowered
without any negative effect (entry 10).
[*] M. Sc. D. Brodbeck, Dipl.-Chem. F. Broghammer, M. Sc. J. Klepp,
Dr. D. Garnier, Dr. W. Frey, Prof. Dr. R. Peters
Universitꢀt Stuttgart, Institut fꢁr Organische Chemie
Pfaffenwaldring 55, 70569 Stuttgart (Germany)
E-mail: rene.peters@oc.uni-stuttgart.de
M. Sc. J. Meisner, Prof. Dr. J. Kꢀstner
Universitꢀt Stuttgart, Institut fꢁr Theoretische Chemie
Pfaffenwaldring 55, 70569 Stuttgart (Germany)
The so far most selective catalyst formed in situ from 9
À
(XÀ = BF4 ) and AlMe3 proved to be a complex mixture of
Supporting information and the ORCID identification number(s) for
the author(s) of this article can be found under:
1
several species as judged by H-/19F NMR. Our speculation
À
that a much more active {Al F} catalyst might have been
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017, 56, 1 – 6
ꢀ 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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