Enantioselective Alkynylation of Aromatic Aldehydes Catalyzed by a Sterically Highly Demanding Chiral-at-Rhodium Lewis Acid.

The enantioselective catalytic alkynylation of aromatic aldehydes is reported using a sterically highly hindered bis-cyclometalated rhodium-based Lewis acid catalyst featuring the octahedral metal as the only stereogenic center. Yields of 58-98% with 79-98% enantiomeric excess were achieved using 1-2 mol % of catalyst. This work complements previous work from our laboratory on the enantioselective alkynylation of 2-trifluoroacetyl imidazoles (Chem. - Eur. J. 2016, 22, 11977-11981) and trifluoromethyl ketones (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 4322-4325) using catalysts with octahedral metal-centered chirality.