Enantioselective formation of stereogenic carbon - Fluorine centers by a simple catalytic method

Article abstract of DOI:10.1002/anie.200500395

(Chemical Equation Presented) An easy protocol has been developed for the formation of stereogenic carbon-fluorine centers by the organocatalytic asymmetric α-fluorination of aldehydes 1. The 2-fluoroaldehydes 4 are formed with 2 as the fluorinating agent

Full text of DOI:10.1002/anie.200500395

Angewandte
Chemie
Enantioselective Fluorination
and which have found direct use in liquid crystal composi-
tions.[13]
Enantioselective Formation of Stereogenic
Carbon–Fluorine Centers by a Simple Catalytic
Method**
Mauro Marigo, Doris Fielenbach, Alan Braunton,
Anne Kjærsgaard, and Karl Anker Jørgensen*
As fluorine is the most electronegative element, the
The unique properties of fluorinated molecules have led to
the wide interest in these compounds in organic syntheses,
medicinal and agricultural chemistry, as well as materials
sciences.[1] This interest has been manifested in the enormous
number of publications relating to organofluorine com-
pounds.[2] In this context, structures in which the fluorine
atom is attached to a chiral center are gaining increasing
importance. Despite this great interest, there is still no simple
and direct catalytic method to obtain optically active fluori-
nated compounds.[3] The development of stable electrophilic
fluorine sources such as Selectfluor, 1-fluoropyridinium salts,
and N-fluorodibenzenesulfonimide (NFSI) has marked an
important milestone for the realization of these reaction
types.[4] As a consequence, the first examples of catalytic
enantioselective fluorinations of b-keto esters that apply both
metal- and organocatalytic approaches were reported.[5,6]
Recently, these methods were also applied toward the
synthesis of chiral fluorinated b-keto phosphonates.[7]
reaction conditions must be chosen carefully under the
following terms: 1) N-fluorination of the catalyst is likely;
therefore, the a-fluorination reaction must be faster than this
process. 2) Undesired racemization and difluorination events
must be rigorously avoided. Taking these considerations into
account, we started our screening experiments with catalysts
that had been previously applied with success in asymmetric
[10b,c]
and C S[11] bond formation reactions. The results of
À
C Cl
À
the screening in which 3-phenylpropanal (1a) was used as
substrate with the commercially available NFSI (2) as the
fluorinating reagent are presented in Table 1.
The use of l-proline (4a), l-prolinamide (4b), and the C2-
symmetric catalyst 5 gave low yields and moderate enantio-
selectivities (Table 1, entries 1–3). This behavior was not a
surprise, as the chemical and physical properties of fluorine
amplify some of the problems that are encountered in the
related chlorination reaction. Because of the high electro-
negativity of fluorine, the catalyst easily forms enamine
To our knowledge, no enantioselective catalytic method
for the direct a-fluorination of aldehydes has been described.
Recently, asymmetric carbon–heteroatom bond formation
reactions that proceed via enamine intermediates were
reported in which chiral secondary amines are used as
catalysts.[8–11] These procedures also showed promise for
application toward fluorination reactions. So far, the only
access to a-fluorinated aldehydes uses a chiral auxiliary
strategy that involves a multistep process.[12] The authors state
that the resulting a-fluorinated products decompose rapidly
on silica and as a result, they must be derivatized directly from
the crude mixture.
Table 1: Screening of catalysts and reaction conditions for the a-
fluorination of 3-phenylpropanal (1a) with NFSI (2) as F+ ion source.[a]
Entry 1a [equiv] 2 [equiv] Cat. [mol%] Solvent Conv. [%][b] ee [%][c]
Herein we present a new and easy access to stereogenic
carbon–fluorine centers through the direct enantioselective
a-fluorination of aldehydes with an organocatalytic approach.
The general reaction is shown below, including the function-
alization of a-fluorinated aldehydes in situ to optically active
a-fluoroalcohols, which are important organic compounds[1]
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1.2
1.2
1.2
1.2
1.2
1.2
1.2
1.2
1
4a (20)
4b (20)
5 (20)
6 (20)
6 (20)
6 (20)
6 (10)
6 (5)
CH2Cl2 <10
30
40
48[d]
87
93
93
93
93
93
93
93
CH2Cl2
CH2Cl2
CH2Cl2
MeCN
MTBE
MTBE
MTBE
MTBE
24
17
40
61
53
62
74
88
1.5
6 (5)
6 (1)
6 (0.25)
10[e] 1.5
11[f] 1.5
1
1
MTBE >90
MTBE 90
[*] M. Marigo, Dr. D. Fielenbach, Dr. A. Braunton, A. Kjærsgaard,
Prof. Dr. K. A. Jørgensen
The Danish National Research Foundation: Center for Catalysis
Department of Chemistry, Aarhus University
DK-8000 Aarhus C (Denmark)
Fax: (45)8919-6199
E-mail: kaj@chem.au.dk
[a] The catalyst and the aldehyde were mixed in the solvent at room
temperature for 15 min before addition of NFSI (0.2 mmol); Ar=Ph-3,5-
(CF3)2; Bn=benzyl. [b] Conversion determined by GC after 1 h; entries 1–
5: incomplete consumption of NFSI; entries 6–10: full consumption of
NFSI (the difference to 100% conversion refers to the difluorinated
product). [c] Percent ee values were determined by GC on a chiral-phase
column (Astec G-TA) and verified by HPLC (Chiralcel OJ column) after
reduction of 1a to the alcohol and acetylation; for details, see Supporting
Information. [d] 23% ee after 3 h. [e] Conversion and % ee were deter-
mined by GC after 2 h. [f] 10 mmol NFSI, 8 h.
[**] This work was made possible by a grant from The Danish National
Research Foundation. M.M. thanks EU: HMPT-CT-2001-00317 for
financial support.
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
under http://www.angewandte.org or from the author.
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2005, 44, 3703 –3706
DOI: 10.1002/anie.200500395
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Table 2: Organocatalytic enantioselective a-fluorination of aldehydes by
NFSI, catalyzed by 6 (1 mol%).[a]
species with both the starting material and the fluorinated
product. The enhanced acidity of the a proton in the
fluorinated product even favors its enamine formation, as
discussed below. Furthermore, in contrast to the chlorination
reaction, the small fluorine atom does not contribute to an
added steric shielding that would disfavor the enamine
equilibrium. This second enamine formation causes either
difluorination or racemization.
Entry
Aldehyde
R
t [h]
Yield [%]
ee [%][b]
1[c]
2[c]
3[d,e]
4[d]
5[d]
6[d]
7[c]
8[d]
1b
1c
1d
1e
1a
1 f
Pr
Bu
6
28
4
2
2
5
2
2
3b >95
3c >90
8d 55
8 f 64
8a 74
8g 69
3e >90
8h 75
96
91
96
91
93
96
97
96
Use of the silylated prolinol derivative 6 as a catalyst
significantly improved the conversion and enantioselectivity
of the reaction (Table 1, entry 4). NMR spectroscopy studies
revealed that the catalyst is slowly desilylated upon mixing
with NFSI. The desilylated 6 shows very low catalytic activity
(10% conversion after 20 h and 61% ee). Therefore, the low
conversion was caused by inactivation of the catalyst. We
rationalized that the solvent could influence the reaction rate
and deprotection of the catalyst. Acetonitrile still did not lead
to full conversion, because of catalyst degradation (entry 5).
However, an improvement was observed with methyl-tert-
butyl ether (MTBE); all reactions performed in this solvent
showed complete consumption of NFSI, but a significant
amount of the difluorinated product was formed as well.
Lowering the amount of catalyst to 5 mol% decreased the
difluorination problem. Finally, the use of only 1 mol% of
catalyst 6 and an excess of the aldehyde 1a resulted in more
than 90% yield of the monofluorinated product within 2 h
Hex
BnO(CH2)3
Bn
Cy
tBu
1g
1h
1-Ad
[a] Compound 2 (0.25 mmol) was added to a mixture of 1 (0.38 mmol)
and 6 (0.0025 mmol) in MTBE (0.5 mL) at room temperature for the
stated period of time; Ad=adamantyl; Bn=benzyl; Cy=cyclohexyl.
[b] Percent ee values were determined by GC or HPLC on a chiral phase;
see Supporting Information for separation conditions. [c] Yields were
based on GC analysis of the crude mixtures before reduction owing to the
volatility of the products. [d] Isolated yields of the alcohol after reduction
with NaBH4. [e] 1.1 equiv NFSI; 1 equiv aldehyde.
chemical outcome of the reaction can be explained by the
formation of an E-configured enamine, where the sterically
demanding substituent of the pyrrolidine ring shields the Re
face of the enamine.
(entry 10). Performing the reaction on
a larger scale
(10 mmol) allowed us to further decrease the catalyst loading
to only 0.25 mmol%. Furthermore, 90% conversion was
obtained, maintaining the enantioselectivity of 93% ee after
8 h reaction time (entry 11). Other commercially available F+
ion sources such as Selectfluor turned out to be unsuitable for
the reaction, as the silylated catalyst 6 is immediately
deprotected in the presence of the BF4À counterion.
This hypothesis is confirmed by a model based on DFT
calculations of the optimized enamine intermediate at the
B3LYP/6-31G(d) level of theory.[15] The lowest-energy struc-
ture of the enamine intermediate is presented in Figure 1. The
With these optimized conditions in hand, the general
scope of the reaction was probed by application to a series of
aldehydes. As mentioned above, a-fluorinated aldehydes
easily decompose on silica gel.[12] Notably, a-fluoroaldehydes
are more volatile than the starting compounds. The formation
of a-fluorinated aldehydes was confirmed by GC–MS and
NMR spectroscopic analysis of the crude reaction mixtures.
The a-fluoroaldehydes 3a, 3d–f, and 3h were reduced directly
to the resulting b-fluoroalcohols without loss of enantiomeric
excess, and the isolated yields given in Table 2 confirm the
high conversion in the organocatalytic enantioselective fluo-
rination step. For the volatile substrates 1b, 1c and 1g, yields
were calculated according to GC analysis of the crude
reaction mixtures before reduction to the b-fluoroalcohols.
The results are presented in Table 2.
For all examples in which a variety of different R sub-
stituents were evaluated, excellent enantioselectivities of
more than 91% ee were obtained, and the enantioenriched
products were formed in good yields with only 1 mol% of
catalyst 6 (Table 2). In the case of substrate 1a in reaction
with 20 mol% of the catalyst, more than 90% of the catalyst
could be recovered after flash chromatography.
Figure 1. DFT-calculated model of the optimized structure of the
enamine formed by isovaleraldehyde and catalyst 6; Ar=Ph-3,5-(CF3)2.
intermediate structure shows that one of the 3,5-di(trifluor-
omethyl)phenyl groups covers the Re face of the enamine. As
a consequence, the electrophilic F+ ion attack occurs from the
Si face, providing excellent enantioselectivities. This model is
in agreement with our experimental observations.
The high configurative stability of the a-fluorinated
products observed under the reaction conditions is a surpris-
ing phenomenon, especially as difluorination is also observed
under certain reaction conditions. Figure 2 illustrates our
theory to explain such stability of the optically active
products. As shown in Figure 1, one of the 3,5-di(trifluoro-
methyl)phenyl groups points towards the reactive center of
the enamine A. In the preferably formed (S,S)-B imminium
ion, the remaining hydrogen atom is situated in between the
The absolute configuration of the b-fluoroalcohols was
determined to be S by comparison of their optical rotation
values with those reported in the literature.[14] The stereo-
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Besides the in-situ reduction to alcohols, other direct
transformations that proceed without epimerization, for
example, the HWE olefination, are described in the liter-
ature.[8]
In summary, a simple method for the formation of
stereogenic carbon–fluorine bonds through a direct, catalytic
a-fluorination of aldehydes has been developed. A range of
aldehydes can be directly fluorinated in the a position in good
yields and with excellent enantioselectivities. The use of NFSI
as a stable, easily handled, and commercially available
electrophilic fluorine source in combination with the advan-
tages of organocatalysis affords this simple protocol. More-
over, 1 mol% of a sterically encumbered chiral pyrrolidine
derivative that is easily accessible in four steps from l-proline
was sufficient for obtaining good to high yields and high
enantioselectivities. It should be pointed out that optically
active a-fluorinated aldehydes are unstable on silica gel and
are more volatile than the starting compounds. Thus, the
optically active a-fluorinated aldehydes were directly reduced
to the corresponding a-fluorinated alcohols, without loss of
enantioselectivity. We believe that this procedure represents
an important new organocatalytic reaction and a significant
improvement of existing methods, and that it will find
intensive use in the synthesis and application of optically
Figure 2. Explanation of the observed configurative stability of the
a-fluorinated aldehydes under the reaction conditions in accordance
with kinetic resolution experiments; Ar=Ph-3,5-(CF3)2.
[16]
active fluorine compounds.
Received: February 2, 2005
Published online: April 28, 2005
fluorine atom and the shielding substituent of the catalyst.
This hydrogen atom is thus placed in a sort of hydrophobic
pocket, which prevents its abstraction as a proton from
nucleophilic attack by a water molecule. On the other hand, in
the disfavored (R,S)-B intermediate, the hydrogen atom is
placed on the open Si face and can be easily abstracted to
form enamine intermediate C. We envisaged that a kinetic
resolution experiment could support this hypothesis: a
racemic mixture of a-fluoroaldehyde 3a was slowly converted
(20% in 4 h) to the difluorinated product D in the presence of
0.5 equiv NFSI (2) and 1 mol% of the catalyst 6. This
experiment clearly revealed that (R)-3a was consumed faster
than (S)-3a and was supported by an enantiomeric excess of
the latter of 20% ee. This observation supports our proposal
of an embedded proton in the favored (S,S)-B intermediate in
the enantiomeric reaction.
Keywords: aldehydes · asymmetric catalysis · electrophilic
.
substitution · enantioselectivity · organocatalysis
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