Development of Mefloquine-Based Bifunctional Secondary Amine Organocatalysts for Enantioselective Michael and Friedel-Crafts Reactions.
Dawid J KucharskiRadosław SuchanekRafał KowalczykPrzemysław J BoratyńskiPublished in: The Journal of organic chemistry (2023)
The chiral framework based on 11-aminomefloquine has been utilized for the first time to construct bifunctional organocatalysts. These catalysts demonstrate high enantioselectivity in both Michael additions and Friedel-Crafts reactions across a variety of substrates, achieving up to >99% ee. The distinctive feature is the incorporation of a secondary amine group, offering unique tight hydrogen-bonding capabilities in the protonated state, as supported by DFT computation. The diversity of these organocatalysts suggests their broad applicability across multiple reaction classes.