A novel copper-catalyzed one-pot cross-coupling of β-ketoacids with in situ generated trifluorodiazoethane has been developed. This reaction provides a direct and efficient method, in which one C-C bond and one C-O bond were formed in a carbenoid center with concomitant denitrogenation-dehydrogenation-decarboxylation, to afford trifluoromethylated aldol products. In several preliminary experiments, good to high enantioselectivities were also obtained.

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Chiral pyrrolidinyl units are important building blocks in biologically active natural products and drugs, and the develpment of efficient methods for the synthesis of diverse structured pyrrolidine derivatives is of...

A simple C-symmetric chiral bisoxazoline is demonstrated to use hydrogen bonding to catalyze an important family of aldol reactions of trifluoroacetaldehyde hemiacetals with various β-carbonyl acids. This reaction is highly enantioselective, delivering chiral nonracemic trifluoromethylated alcohols with excellent optical purity and good isolated yields. This concept of relaying chiral information via a chiral hydrogen-bond acceptor should be applicable to a vast number of organocatalytic processes.