CuF₂-Catalyzed Enantioselective Synthesis of Allylic Alcohols and Diarylmethanols

Significance

Fast, effective and reliable methods for obtaining chiral allylic alcohols generally employ enantioselective resolution or alkenylzinc addition to aldehydes. These methods either waste half of the available reagent, or use pyrophoric, potentially dangerous reagents. Herein is presented a catalytic enantioselective method to synthesize chiral allylic alcohols and diarylmethanols from addition of air-stable vinyl- or phenylsiloxanes to aldehydes. Various aromatic, heteroaromatic, and easily enolizable aliphatic aldehydes can be coupled with simple and highly substituted vinylsiloxanes with excellent enantioselectivity.