Nucleophilic substitution reactions of alcohols are among the most fundamental and strategically important transformations in organic chemistry. For over half a century, these reactions have been achieved by using stoichiometric, and often hazardous, reagents to activate the otherwise unreactive alcohols. Here, we demonstrate that a specially designed phosphine oxide promotes nucleophilic substitution reactions of primary and secondary alcohols in a redox-neutral catalysis manifold that produces water as the sole by-product. The scope of the catalytic coupling process encompasses a range of acidic pronucleophiles that allow stereospecific construction of carbon-oxygen and carbon-nitrogen bonds.

A chiral phosphathiahelicene scaffold displaying a phosphole and a thiophene unit as the terminal rings of the helical sequence has been synthesized and characterized by spectroscopic methods and X-ray diffraction studies. The phosphine oxides (HelPhos-V oxides) have been obtained following a robust and scalable synthetic approach, based on a nickel-promoted alkynes cyclotrimerization reaction. Then, late-stage functionalization has been carried out via a bromination/palladium coupling reaction sequence. The HelPhos-V gold(I) complexes have been used as catalysts in the unprecedented enantioselective [2+2] cyclization of N-homoallenyl tryptamine derivatives, to afford indolenine-fused cyclobutanes in good isolated yields, with enantiomeric excesses up to 93%.