The enantioselective, vicinal diamination of alkenes represents one of the stereocontrolled additions that remains an outstanding challenge in organic synthesis. A general solution to this problem would enable the efficient and selective preparation of widely useful, enantioenriched diamines for applications in medicinal chemistry and catalysis. In this article, we describe the first enantioselective, syn-diamination of simple alkenes mediated by a chiral, enantioenriched organoselenium catalyst together with a N,N′-bistosyl urea as the bifunctional nucleophile and Nfluorocollidinium tetrafluoroborate as the stoichiometric oxidant. Diaryl, aryl-alkyl, and alkylalkyl olefins bearing a variety of substituents are all diaminated in consistently high enantioselectivities but variable yields. The reaction likely proceeds through a Se(II)/Se(IV) redox catalytic cycle reminiscent of the syn-dichlorination reported previously. Furthermore, the synstereospecificity of the transformation shows promise for highly enantioselective diaminations of alkenes with no strong steric or electronic bias.

The enantioselective dichlorination of alkenes is a continuing challenge in organic synthesis owing to the limitations of selective and independent antarafacial delivery of both electrophilic chlorenium and nucleophilic chloride to an olefin. Development of a general method for the enantioselective dichlorination of isolated alkenes would allow access to a wide variety of polyhalogenated natural products. Accordingly, the enantioselective suprafacial dichlorination of alkenes catalyzed by electrophilic organoselenium reagents has been developed to address these limitations. The evaluation of twenty-three diselenides as precatalysts for enantioselective dichlorination is described, with a maximum e.r. of 76:24 Additionally, mechanistic studies suggest an unexpected Dynamic Kinetic Asymmetric Transformation (DyKAT) process may be operative.

An investigation into the use of Lewis base catalysis for the enantioselective chlorolactonization of 1,2-disubstituted alkenoic acids is described. Two mechanistically distinct reaction pathways for catalytic chlorolactonization have been identified. Mechanistic investigation revealed that tertiary amines predominately operate as Brønsted rather than Lewis bases. Two potential modes of activation have been identified that involve donation of electron density of the carboxylate to the C=C bond as well hydrogen bonding to the chlorinating agent. Sulfur- and selenium-based additives operate under Lewis base catalysis; however, due to the instability of the intermediate benzylic chloriranium ion, chlorolactonization suffers from low chemo-, diastereo-, and enantioselectivities. Independent generation of the benzylic chloriranium ion shows that it is in equilibrium with an open cation, which leads to low specificities in the nucleophilic capture of the intermediate.

A variety of di‐ and trifluoromethyl‐s‐triazines are prepared following straightforward synthetic protocols from simple, commercially available starting materials. Trichloromethyl‐substituted triazine electrophiles are obtained in good yield and react with amine nucleophiles to afford aminotriazine products in good to excellent yield. The nucleophilic aromatic substitution reaction is broad in scope and proceeds smoothly with both aromatic and aliphatic (primary, secondary, and branched) amines in the presence of non‐participating functional groups including alcohols, carboxylic acids, indoles, and common amine protecting groups. Furthermore, most reactions require only a catalytic amount of 4‐DMAP with no stoichiometric base and are complete within 2 hours at ambient temperature.