Catalytic Asymmetric Addition of Organolithium Reagents to Aldehydes

Copyright © 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. Herein we report an efficient catalytic system for the titanium-promoted enantioselective addition of organolithium reagents to aldehydes, based on chiral Ar-BINMOL ligands. Unprecedented yields and enantioselectivities are achieved in the alkylation reactions of aliphatic aldehydes. Remarkably, methyllithium can be added to a wide variety of aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes, providing versatile chiral methyl carbinol units in a simple one-pot procedure under mild conditions and in very short reaction times