Asymmetric Cross-Dehydrogenative Coupling Enabled by the Design and Application of Chiral Triazole-Containing Phosphoric Acids

This report describes the development of an enantioselective C–N bond-forming reaction to produce 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline-derived cyclic aminals catalyzed by chiral phosphate anions. Central to the success of this goal was the design of a library of 3,3′-triazolyl BINOL-derived phosphoric acids capable of forming attractive hydrogen-bonding interactions with the peptide-like substrate. We envision this work will offer an alternative to the conventional strategy of increasing catalyst steric bulk to improve enantioselectivity with BINOL-derived phosphoric acids.