A new dinuclear chiral salen complexes for asymmetric ring opening and closing reactions: Synthesis of valuable chiral intermediates

A new dinuclear chiral Co(salen) complexes bearing group 13 metals have been synthesized and characterized. The easily prepared complexes exhibited very high catalytic reactivity and enantioselectivity for the asymmetric ring opening of epoxides with H2O, chloride ions and carboxylic acids and consequently provide enantiomerically enriched terminal epoxides (>99% ee). It also catalyzes the asymmetric cyclization of ring opened product, to prepare optically pure terminal epoxides in one step. The homogeneous dinuclear chiral Co(salen) have been covalently immobilized on MCM-41. The potential benefits of heterogenization include facilitation of catalyst separation and recyclability requiring very simple techniques. The system described is very efficient.

Graphical abstractDinuclear chiral salen complexes bearing Lewis acid of group 13 metals catalyze asymmetric ring opening of various terminal epoxides with myriad of nucleophiles via kinetic resolution. The complexes are also found to be active for asymmetric cyclization reaction too.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide