Search for Chiral Catalysts Through Ligand Diversity: Substrate‐Specific Catalysts and Ligand Screening on Solid Phase

Abstract

An efficient strategy in the search for chiral catalysts is ligand optimization on solid support. This diversity approach provides unique opportunities for the identification of substrate-specific catalysts and leads to the discovery of ligands with unusual properties that might have otherwise escaped detection. Thus, addition of TMSCN to cyclopentene oxide with ligands 1 or 2, which are very similar, results in opposite enantioselectivities (see reaction on the right; TMS = trimethylsilyl).