Mixtures of palladium acetate and o-(di-tert-butylphosphino)biphenyl (4) catalyze the room-temperature Suzuki coupling of aryl bromides and aryl chlorides with 0.5−1.0 mol % Pd. Use of o-(dicyclohexylphosphino)biphenyl (2) allows Suzuki couplings to be carried out at low catalyst loadings (0.000001−0.02 mol % Pd). The process tolerates a broad range of functional groups and substrate combinations including the use of sterically hindered substrates. This is the most active catalyst system in terms of reaction temperature, turnover number, and steric tolerance which has been reported to date.

The use of pseudoephedrine as a practical chiral auxiliary for asymmetric synthesis is described in full. Both enantiomers of pseudoephedrine are inexpensive commodity chemicals and can be N-acylated in high yields to form tertiary amides. In the presence of lithium chloride, the enolates of the corresponding pseudoephedrine amides undergo highly diastereoselective alkylations with a wide range of alkyl halides to afford α-substituted products in high yields. These products can then be transformed in a single operation into highly enantiomerically enriched carboxylic acids, alcohols, aldehydes, and ketones.

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