Cheap transition metal Ni-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation of 2-oxazolones was successfully developed, which provided an efficient synthetic strategy to prepare various chiral 2-oxazolidinones with 95%–99% yields and 97%−>99% ee. The gram-scale hydrogenation could be proceeded well with >99% ee in the presence of low catalyst loading (up to 3350 TON). This Ni-catalyzed hydrogenation protocol demonstrated great synthetic utility, and the chiral 2-oxazolidinone product was easily converted to a variety of other important molecules in good yields and without loss of ee values, such as chiral dihydrothiophene-2­(3H)-thione, amino alcohol, oxazoline ligand, and allenamide. Moreover, a series of deuterium labeling experiments, control experiments, and DFT calculations were conducted to illustrate a reasonable catalytic mechanism for this Ni-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation, which involved a tautomerization between the enamine and its isomer imine and then went through asymmetric 1,2-addition of Ni­(II)-H to the preferred imine.

Summary Chiral cyclic sulfamidates are useful building blocks to construct compounds, such as chiral amines, with important applications. Often these compounds can only be generated through expensive precious metal catalysts. Here, Ni(OAc) 2 /( S , S )-Ph-BPE-catalyzed highly efficient asymmetric hydrogenation of cyclic sulfamidate imines was successfully developed, affording various chiral cyclic sulfamidates with high yields and excellent enantioselectivities (up to 99% yield, >99% enantiomeric excess [ee]). This Ni-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation on a gram scale has been achieved with only 0.1 mol% catalyst loading in 99% yield with 93% ee. Other types of N -sulfonyl ketimines were also hydrogenated well to obtain the corresponding products with >99% conversion, 96%–97% yields, and 97%–>99% ee. In addition, this asymmetric methodology could produce other enantioenriched organic molecules, such as chiral β-fluoroamine, amino ether, and phenylglycinol. Moreover, a reasonable catalytic cycle was provided according to the deuterium-labeling studies, which could reveal a possible mechanism for this Ni-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation.

An enantiomerically enriched 3-hydroxymethyl pentenal unit is one of the key structural cores in plenty of natural products and drug candidates with significant biological activities. However, very few synthetic methodologies for the facile construction of the related skeletons have been reported to date. Herein, an elegant iridium-catalyzed asymmetric cascade allylation/retro-Claisen reaction of readily available β-diketones with VEC was successfully developed, and a wide range of functionalized chiral 3-hydroxymethyl pentenal derivatives could be prepared in good yields with excellent enantioselectivities. Various 1,3-diketones and functionalized ketones containing different electron-withdrawing groups on the β-position were well tolerated as outstanding partners with high reactivity and excellent regio-/chemo-/enantioselectivity. The synthetic utility of product chiral 3-hydroxymethyl pentenal derivatives was well shown through gram-scale transformation, hydrogenation, cyclopropanation, hydroboration, and olefin metathesis. Moreover, this elegant protocol demonstrated synthetic applications in the concise synthesis of synthetically useful chiral building block (S)-Taniguchi lactone and the formal synthesis of natural product cytisine. A rational reaction pathway was proposed based on the experimental results and control experiments.

The Iridium-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation of cyclic sulfamidate imines was successfully developed with N-methylated ZhaoPhos L2 as the ligand. A variety of chiral cyclic sulfamidates were obtained with excellent results (up to 99% yield, 99% ee). Furthermore, this asymmetric hydrogenation can be employed as the key reaction step to prepare the important intermediates in organic synthesis.

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