A Lewis acid activated reaction of Zn with EtI to promote highly enantioselective alkyne additions to aldehydes

Abstract

An easily available BINOL-Ti(O(i)Pr)4 catalyst system is found to activate the reaction of Zn powder with EtI for the asymmetric alkyne addition to aldehydes at room temperature. It allows the synthesis of a number of synthetically useful chiral propargylic alcohols with both high yields and high enantioselectivity (up to >96% ee).