The stereoselective synthesis of chiral heterocyclic carbene precursors and the structural features of their silver and gold complexes were investigated. The prepared compounds are all based on the imidazolidine scaffold and bear the bulky tert-butyl substituent on the backbone in a stereocontrolled manner. The majority of the synthesized carbene precursors carry an additional element of central chirality in the side chain, and for some of them on formation of their silver or gold complexes a third element of asymmetry, axial chirality through hindered rotation of the aromatic substituent, is also present. The systematic study of the stereoselective formation of the NHC precursors led to scalable routes without the need for chiral chromatography. The NHC precursors were transformed efficiently into their silver and gold complexes, whose structural features were studied in detail both in solution and in the solid phase.
VCD analysis of 16 diastereomeric pairs of NHC precursors containing two isolated chirality centers and different substitution patterns identified VCD transitions characteristic of the chirality center in the imidazolium ring or in the side chain, which, in contrast to ECD and OR, could be utilized to assign the two chirality centers separately by simple comparison, regardless of the type and position of achiral aromatic substituents. While the ECD and OR data showed great dependence on the position of an achiral substituent such as a methoxy group, characteristic experimental VCD transitions remained consistent and they could be used to determine the absolute configuration of all the regio- and stereoisomers and substituted analogues. VCD, ECD and OR approaches were evaluated, and several carbene precursors were found, for which only the VCD method could distinguish the four stereoisomers. With t-butyl, phenyl or 2-naphthyl substituents at the C-1′ chirality center, the ECD spectra of the C-1′ epimers were near-identical, and hence it was only the VCD approach that showed distinct differences suitable for the configurational assignment. The chiroptical characterization of our diastereomeric pairs of NHC precursors enables the future application of related derivatives having different substitution patterns in stereoselective transformations.
The formation of polysubstituted cyclopropane derivatives in the gold(I)-catalyzed reaction of olefins and propargylic esters is a potentially useful transformation to generate diversity, therefore any method in which its stereoselectivity could be controlled is of significant interest. We prepared and tested a series of chiral gold(I)-carbene complexes as a catalyst in this transformation. With a systematic optimization of the reaction conditions, we were able to achieve high enantioselectivity in the test reaction while the cis:trans selectivity of the transformation was independent of the catalyst. Using the optimized conditions, we reacted a series of various olefins and acetylene derivatives to find that, although the reactions proceeded smoothly and the products were usually isolated in good yield and with good to exclusive cis selectivity, the observed enantioselectivity varied greatly and was sometimes moderate at best. We were unable to establish any structure-property relationship, which suggests that for any given reagent combination, one has to identify individually the best catalyst.
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