Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung Journal Article published in: J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2018, 140, 12671–12676, ACS Publications https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.8b07092 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes. Scalable and Highly Diastereo- and Enantioselective Catalytic Diels−Alder Reaction of α,β-Unsaturated Methyl Esters Tim Gatzenmeier, Mathias Turberg, Diana Yepes, Youwei Xie, Frank Neese, Giovanni Bistoni and Benjamin List* Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz 1, 45470 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany *Correspondence to:
[email protected] ABSTRACT: Despite tremendous advances in enantiose- unsaturated N-acyl oxazolidinones, aldehydes, ketones, lective catalysis of the Diels–Alder reaction, the use of sim- and trifluoroethyl esters as dienophiles. Also some simple, ple α,β-unsaturated esters, one of the most abundant and unactivated α,β-unsaturated esters, such as methyl or ethyl useful class of dienophiles, is still severely limited in scope acrylate and crotonate, in combination with cyclopentadiene due to their low reactivity. We report here a catalytic asym- can engage in highly enantioselective Diels–Alder reactions metric Diels–Alder methodology for a large variety of α,β- catalyzed either by chiral alkyldichloroboranes introduced unsaturated methyl esters and different dienes based on by Hawkins6 or Corey’s cationic oxazaborolidines (CBS),5c,7 extremely reactive silylium imidodiphosphorimidate (IDPi) which undoubtedly represent the most versatile family of Lewis acids. Mechanistic insights from accurate domain- chiral Lewis acids to date. In addition, various organocata- based local pair natural orbital coupled-cluster (DLPNO- lytic approaches have been described for α,β-unsaturated CCSD(T)) calculations rationalize the catalyst control and aldehydes and ketones via asymmetric iminium ion or stereochemical outcome.