COMMUNICATION
to characteristic nonlinear effects (positive for low eeꢀs and
negative for high eeꢀs of the solid proline catalyst, joined by
a plateau reflecting the formation of an eutectic for inter-
mediate eeꢀs of proline) that give a direct and clear-cut indi-
cation of the presence of solid proline as a catalyst source in
the reaction medium.[21] We report now on our initial results
in this subject, which have revealed a hitherto unprecedent-
ed substrate dependence of the nonlinear effects and strong-
ly suggest that the role of the hydrogen-bond-donor co-cata-
lyst is much more complex than previously assumed by Reis
et al.[4]
We selected as benchmark reactions the heterogeneous
proline-catalyzed aldol additions of acetone to 4-nitrobenz-
AHCTUNGTREGaNNNU ldehyde (2a) and to 4-bromobenzaldehyde (2b) (as repre-
sentative highly reactive and less reactive aromatic alde-
hydes, respectively) in a 5:1 toluene–acetone mixture (in
which the catalyst is only sparingly soluble) as the solvent.
The chosen co-catalyst was the N-(3,5-bis (trifluoromethyl)-
Figure 1. Left: Proposed structure of the proline–thiourea complex.
Right: Proposed transition state for the proline-thiourea catalyzed aldol
reaction.
phenyl)-N’-(2,6-diisopropylphenyl) thiourea (3),
a com-
run in less polar hydrocarbon solvents such as toluene and
hexane. Most recently, McQuade and co-workers[16] have
disclosed the results of a study on the effect of bifunctional
urea co-catalysts in the asymmetric a-aminoxylation of alde-
hydes under proline catalysis.
This reaction gives excellent levels of enantioselectivity,
and the authors centered their attention on the reaction
rate, which turns out to be substantially increased upon ad-
dition of the urea co-catalyst. Interestingly enough, simple
NMR experiments showed that the solubility of proline in
the reaction medium (ethyl acetate) was not appreciably en-
hanced by the presence of the urea, and the authors, build-
ing upon previous kinetic studies of Blackmond,[17] proposed
that observed rate enhancement might be due to the inter-
action between Seebachꢀs oxazolidinone intermediate[6] and
the urea, that would increase the rate of enamine formation
(Figure 2).[16]
pound that had given excellent results in the aldol desym-
metrizations studied by us.[5] The reactions with 4-nitrobenz-
AHCTUNGTREGaNNUN ldehyde were performed at ambient temperature with a
10 mol% of proline, and with a 0.25m concentration of alde-
hyde. In the case of 4-bromobenzaldehyde, the reaction rate
was very low with a 10 mol% amount of proline, and the
study was performed with a 30 mol% of the catalyst. After
stirring for 2 h a suspension of the proline catalyst in the tol-
uene/acetone mixture (to ensure the full establishment of
solubility equilibria and therefore avoiding the presence of
disturbing “kinetic conglomerate” effects[22]), the aldehyde
(either 2a or 2b) was added in one portion. The conversion
of the reaction was monitored by 1H NMR spectroscopy,
and the enantiomeric purities of the aldol adducts 4a and
4b were determined by HPLC.[23] The reactions with the
proline–thiourea catalytic assembly were run in a similar
way (10 mol% proline+10 mol% thiourea 3). The results
obtained with enantiopure l-proline are summarized in
Scheme 1.
The presence of thiourea 3 substantially increased the
rate of these reactions. Thus, the aldol addition of 4-bromo-
benzaldehyde (2b) required four days to achieve a 40%
conversion with 0.3 equiv of l-proline as the sole catalyst,
while a similar conversion was reached after only 24 h when
0.1 equivalents of l-proline and 0.1 equivalents of thiourea 3
were used. A similar effect, albeit less pronounced, was ob-
served for the more reactive 4-nitrobenzaldehyde (2a); thus,
a 15% conversion was achieved after 20 h with 0.1 equiva-
lents of l-proline, and a 35% conversion was measured
after the same time with 10 mol% of the l-proline–thiourea
catalytic system. As can be seen in Scheme 1, the proline–
thiourea catalytic combination also afforded sizable increas-
es in the enantiomeric purities of the aldol products (from
60–71% ee in the case of 4a, and from 51–63% ee in the
case of 4b).
Figure 2. Possible interaction by hydrogen bonding between a Seebach
oxazolidinone and a urea (adapted from reference [16]).
These findings cast serious doubts upon the extent and
relevance of proline solubilization by the thiourea co-cata-
lyst in the aldol reactions explored by Reis et al.[4] and by
us,[5] and we felt that this important issue deserved more de-
tailed consideration. We envisaged that the comparative
study of nonlinear effects[18] in the heterogeneous proline-
catalyzed aldol reaction, both in the absence and in the
presence of a thiourea co-catalyst, could shed some light on
this problem. As demonstrated in the pioneering contribu-
tions of Hayashi[19] and Blackmond,[20] the higher solubility
of enantiopure proline with respect to the racemic gives rise
We then proceeded to the study of nonlinear effects, by
running the reactions in the same conditions described
above, but using freshly prepared, carefully dried solid pro-
Chem. Eur. J. 2010, 16, 1142 – 1148
ꢆ 2010 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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