Enantioselective Hydride Abstraction in Organic Substrates: A Novel Use for Chiral Carbenium Ions

Abstract

[reaction: see text] It is surprising that chiral cations have not been used to distinguish between prochiral hydrides when converse notions, such as asymmetric addition of a hyride to a prochiral functional group or use of a chiral anion to distinguish between a pair of prochiral protons, are methods employed everyday in enantioselective synthesis. To the best of our knowledge, this Letter describes the first example of an oxidative enantioselective hydride transfer process.