An Iron-Based Catalyst Enables the Enantioconvergent Synthesis of Chiral 1,1-Diarylalkanes Through a Suzuki-Miyaura Cross-Coupling Reaction
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doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv.12582284.v1 An Iron-Based Catalyst Enables The Enantioconvergent Synthesis of Chiral 1,1-Diarylalkanes Through a Suzuki-Miyaura Cross-Coupling Reaction Chet Tyrol, Nang Yone, Connor Gallin, Jeffery Byers Submitted date: 29/06/2020 • Posted date: 30/06/2020 Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Citation information: Tyrol, Chet; Yone, Nang; Gallin, Connor; Byers, Jeffery (2020): An Iron-Based Catalyst Enables The Enantioconvergent Synthesis of Chiral 1,1-Diarylalkanes Through a Suzuki-Miyaura Cross-Coupling Reaction. ChemRxiv. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv.12582284.v1 By using an iron-based catalyst, access to enantioenriched 1,1-diarylakanes was enabled through an enantioselective Suzuki-Miyaura crosscoupling reaction. The combination of a chiral cyanobis(oxazoline) ligand framework and 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene additive were essential to afford high yields and enantioselectivities in cross-coupling reactions between unactivated aryl boronic esters and a variety of benzylic chlorides, including challenging ortho-substituted benzylic chloride substrates. Mechanistic investigations implicate a stereoconvergent pathway involving carbon-centered radical intermediates. File list (2) 20200623_CCT_ChemRxiv_Enantioselective.pdf (648.82 KiB) view on ChemRxiv download file 20200623_CCT_ChemRxiv_Enantioselective_ESI.pdf (7.74 MiB) view on ChemRxiv download file An Iron-Based Catalyst Enables The Enantioconvergent Synthesis of Chiral 1,1- Diarylalkanes Through a Suzuki-Miyaura Cross-Coupling Reaction Chet C. Tyrol,*a Nang Yone a, Connor F. Gallina and Jeffery A. Byersa By using an iron-based catalyst, access to enantioenriched 1,1-diarylakanes was enabled through an enantioselective Suzuki-Miyaura cross- coupling reaction. The combination of a chiral cyanobis(oxazoline) ligand framework and 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene additive were essential to afford high yields and enantioselectivities in cross-coupling reactions between unactivated aryl boronic esters and a variety of benzylic chlorides, including challenging ortho-substituted benzylic chloride substrates. Mechanistic investigations implicate a stereoconvergent pathway involving carbon-centered radical intermediates. Introduction Since the renaissance of iron-based catalysts used for cross-coupling reactions were galvanized by the seminal work of Fürstner at the turn of the century,1 industrial and academic interest in these catalysts have increased due to the high abundance and low toxicity of iron as well as the unique reactivity that these types of catalysts afford.2–4 Fast reaction kinetics are often observed with iron-based catalysts, which leads to complementary reactivity compared to many nickel-based catalysts used for similar reactions.1,5 A particularly prolific area of cross-coupling reactions that has benefited from the development of iron-based catalysts are reactions involving alkyl halide electrophiles with organomagnesium,6–9 organozinc,10,11 organoaluminium,12 and most recently organoboron-based13–17 organometallic nucleophiles. These catalysts have demonstrated remarkable reactivity, especially for cross coupling reactions involving sterically demanding substrates and heteroaromatic boronic esters.18 Despite these rapid advancements, enantioselective cross-coupling reactions that utilize iron-based catalysts are exceedingly rare and have been greatly overshadowed by the tremendous achievements in enantioconvergent systems employing nickel-based catalysts.19 In fact, only three enantioselective cross coupling reactions that utilize iron-based catalysts have been reported.20–22 All of these reactions use a-haloesters as electrophiles and none of them use unactivated boronic esters as nucleophiles. With this report, we expand the nascent scope of enantioselective iron-based cross-coupling reactions and advocate for their value in chemical synthesis with the synthesis of enantioenriched 1,1-diarylalkanes (Figure 1). Blockbuster pharmaceuticals, such as Zoloft, Detrol and SGLT2 inhibitors all contain the chiral 1,1-diarylalkane motif while eliciting a range of physiological responses (Figure 1a).23 Despite the fact that one enantiomer of these drugs is often more potent,[24] they are either sold as racemates, mixtures of diastereomers,25 or are obtained in enantioenriched form as a result of a late stage resolution.[25,26] These tactics are a likely symptom of synthetic limitations that have prevented access to enantiomerically enriched 1,1-diaryl alkanes. Consequently, Figure 1 a) Pharmaceuticals containing the 1,1-diarylalkane motif. b) the enantioselective synthesis of the 1,1-diarylalkane subunit has Synthetic routes to enantiomerically enriched 1,1-diarylalkanes c) become a popular contemporary topic for synthetic organic Enantioconvergent Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling of benzylic chlorides [27] chemists. Current approaches toward such motifs include catalyzed by iron complexes supported by cyanobis(oxazoline) ligands. asymmetric hydrogenation of 1,1-diarylalkenes, [28,29], nucleophilic and radical additions to alkenes,[30–32] and stereospecific[33–35] as well as Since ligand modifications did not improve performance, 1 was [36,37] stereoconvergent cross coupling reactions (Figure 1b). A method used for the final optimization because the ligand in 1 is commercially that is noticeably absent from this list is a stereoconvergent Suzuki- available. In our original report, we found that an extra equivalent of Miyaura cross coupling reaction. Such a reaction would closely mimic ligand was needed to obtain high yields of the cross-coupled product at the ubiquitous Suzuki-Miyaura cross coupling reactions used in the the expense of slower reaction rates.17 We hypothesized that the extra pharmaceutical industry for the construction of C–C bonds between two ligand formed an off cycle homoleptic complex containing two 2 38 sp -hybridized substrates. Herein, we report the first enantioselective cyanobis(oxazoline) ligands, which extended catalyst lifetime by Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction between benzylic chlorides and preventing catalyst aggregation. Since benzylic halides have weak unactivated arylboronic-pinacol esters that is made possible by carbon-halogen bonds that are more susceptible to homolysis, we capitalizing on the reactivity of an iron-based catalyst (Figure 1c). hypothesized that using extra ligand was detrimental for this class of electrophiles, leading to increased production of 3. Consistent with this hypothesis were higher yields of 2 with concomitant decreased yield of Results and discussion 3 for a reaction carried out without extra ligand (entry 13). Control Previously, we reported that iron-based complexes supported by experiments confirmed once again that 1,3,5-TMB led to higher yields, chiral cyanobis(oxazoline) ligands were competent catalysts for Suzuki- even without extra ligand (entry 14). Finally, enantioselectivity was Miyaura cross coupling reactions between alkyl halides and unactivated aryl boronic esters.17 Given that the method utilized a chiral catalyst and Table 1. Optimization of the Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction tolerated secondary alkyl halides, we hypothesized that it would be between 1-chloroethylbenzene and 2-napthylboronic pinacol ester suitable for the stereoselective cross-coupling of secondary benzyl catalyzed by bis(oxazoline) iron complexes. halide electrophiles and arylboronic ester nucleophiles to give X O O R O O R4 3 enantioenriched 1,1-diaryl alkanes. R or R3 N N 4 N N Exploratory reactions between (1-chloroethyl)benzene and 2- R1 Fe R2 Fe Ph R R1 Ph 2 Cl Cl Cl naphthylboronic acid pinacol ester under our previously reported 1,4-11 12 17 conditions using cyano(bisoxazoline) iron(II) chloride complex 1 as the Fecat (10 mol%) Cl Ligand (10 mol%) * catalyst precursor and benzene as the solvent led to 1,1-diaryl alkane 2 O 1,3,5-TMB (1 equiv.) + + Ph B in 64% yield and with an enantiomeric ratio (er) of 74:26 (Table 1, entry (rac) O LiNMeEt (1.2 equiv.) Ph * Ph * 1). A competitive side product was compound 3, which results from the o-C6F2H4, rt, 24 h (1 equiv.) (2 equiv.) 2 3 homodimerization of the benzyl halide starting material. Importantly, [a] [b] [a] using the preformed iron complex was necessary to obtain 2 in high Entry Fecat R1 R2 R3 R4 X 2 (%) er of 2 3 (%) yield, although identical enantioselectivity was observed for a reaction c,e carried out by mixing the cyano(bisoxazoline) ligand with iron dichloride 1 1 Ph H H H CN 64 74:26 9 (entry 2). An evaluation of solvents and stoichiometric additives39 (see 2c,e FeCl Ph H H H CN 19 74:26 19 Table S3) revealed that high yields and improved selectivities could be 2 obtained for reactions carried out in 1,2-diflurorobenzene as the 3 1 Ph H H H CN 73 79:21 9 solvent and using 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene (1,3,5-TMB) as a stoichiometric additive (entry 3, Table 1). While using 1,2- 4 4 H 3,5-tBuPh H H CN 36 32:68 9 difluorobenzene improved selectivity, inclusion of 1,3,5-TMB had a 5 5 Mes H H H CN 15 65:35 27 much more significant impact on product yield than selectivity. Next, a variety of aromatic and aliphatic substituted 6 6 H Ph H Ph CN 71 26:74 5 cyanobis(oxazoline) ligands were evaluated (Table 1). Increasing the steric bulk of the aryl group installed on carbon 4 and 4' of the ligand 7 7 Ph H Ph Ph CN 64 65:35 13 led to lower yields and enantioselectivity (entries 4-5). In the case of 8 8 Bn H H H CN 8 61:39 33 iron complex 5, homocoupled product 3 was a major product (entry 5). Adding phenyl substitution to the 4, 4', 5, and 5’ positions of the 9 9 tBu H H H CN 0 N/A 0 cyanobis(oxazoline) ligand resulted in similar yields and enantioselectivities as reactions catalysed by 1 (entries 6-7). Replacing 10 10 iPr H H H CN 16 73:27 20 aromatic with aliphatic substituents on the oxazoline ring led to low 11 11 Ph H H H H 57 76:24 18 conversion of the alkyl halide substrate (entries 8-10). Removing the cyano functionality installed in the backbone of the bis(oxazoline) ligand 12 12 Ph N/A N/A N/A N/A 0 N/A 45 led to lower yields of 2 and higher production of 3 (entry 11).