The first application of C-2-symmetric ferrocenyl phosphinite ligands for rhodium-catalyzed asymmetric transfer hydrogenation of various ketones

Homogeneous catalysis has been responsible for many major recent developments in synthetic organic chemistry. The combined use of organometallic and coordination chemistry has produced a number of new and powerful synthetic methods for important classes of compounds in general and for optically active substances in particular. For this aim, a new class of chiral modular C-2-symmetric ferrocenyl phosphinite ligands has been prepared in good yields by using the inexpensive 1,1'-ferrocenedicarboxyaldehyde and various ferrocene based-amino alcohols as starting materials, and applied in the rhodium(I)-catalyzed asymmetric transfer hydrogenation (ATH) of aromatic ketones to give corresponding secondary alcohols with excellent enantioselectivities and reactivities using isoPrOH as the hydrogen source (up to 99% conversion and 99% ee). The substituents on the backbone of the ligands are found to exhibit a remarkable effect on both the activity and % ee. The structures of these ligands and their complexes have been elucidated by a combination of multinuclear NMR spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy and elemental analysis. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.