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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Pseudoephedrine amide enolates are shown to undergo efficient alkylation reactions with epoxides as electrophiles. Reactions with monosubstituted epoxides are subject to stereochemical matching such that the pairing leading to the 1,3-syn diastereomer is a highly selective, synthetically useful process, while the pairing forming the 1,3-anti diastereomer is not. Reactions with the 1,1-disubstituted epoxide isobutylene oxide are also highly diastereoselective and synthetically useful, but ethylene oxide exhibits poor diastereoselectivity. As an alternative to the use of ethylene oxide, 2-(tert-butyldimethylsilyloxy)ethyl iodide is shown to undergo highly diastereoselective and efficient alkylation reactions with pseudoephedrine amide enolates. Interestingly, epoxides and alkyl halides are found to attack opposite π-faces of pseudoephedrine amide enolates. The products of each of these alkylation reactions are transformed efficiently into γ-lactones by acidic hydrolysis and into methyl ketones by the addition of methyllithium. The methodology described provides useful procedures for the synthesis of enantiomerically enriched γ-lactones and γ-hydroxy ketones.

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