Nickel-Catalyzed Enantioselective Reductive Arylation and Heteroarylation of Aldimines via an Elementary 1,4-Addition.

Nickel catalysts of chiral pyrox ligands promoted enantioselective reductive arylation and heteroarylation of aldimines, using directly (hetero)aryl halides and sulfonates. The catalytic arylation can also be conducted with crude aldimines generated from condensation of aldehydes and azaaryl amines. Mechanistically, density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experiments pointed to an elementary step of 1,4-addition of aryl nickel(I) complexes to N -azaaryl aldimines.