Pd/Xu-Phos-catalyzed asymmetric elimination of fully substituted enol triflates into axially chiral trisubstituted allenes.

Abstract

The β-H elimination, as one of the most important elementary reactions in transition metal chemistry, is a key step in quenching the carbon-palladium bond for the Heck reaction. However, the β-H elimination of the alkenyl palladium species leading to allene is an energetically unfavored process, and therefore, it has been a long-standing challenge in control of this process via enantioselective manner. We developed a concise and efficient methodology to construct trisubstituted chiral allenes from stereodefined fully substituted enol triflates by the enantioselective β<i>-</i>H elimination of the alkenyl palladium species under mild conditions. The identified <b>Xu-Phos</b> play a crucial role in the chemoselectivity and enantioselectivity. Multiple linear regression analysis shows the important steric effect on enantioselectivity. DFT computation results allow us to propose an intramolecular base (^-OAc)-assisted deprotonation mechanism for this progress. Distortion-interaction and energy decomposition analysis indicate that the difference in electrostatic energy (<i>E</i>_elec) of the two intramolecular base-assisted deprotonation transition states dominates the stereoselectivity.