Chiral N-Heterocyclic Carbene-Iridium Complexes for Asymmetric Reduction of Prochiral Ketimines

Abstract Enantioselective reduction of imines to the corresponding chiral secondary amines has been studied using a series of chiral half-sandwich iridium complexes. Chiral N-Heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands in these complexes were synthesized from readily available, naturally occurring amino acids. Inexpensive phenylsilane was used as a convenient hydrogen donor. Under the optimized conditions, Ir-NHC complexes could reduce ketimines in good yields, albeit with moderate enantiomeric excess (ee). The phenylglycine derived chiral NHC was shown to give the best Ir catalyst and it also gave the maximum ee compared to catalysts prepared from other NHCs in this series. The opposite enantiomer of the reduction product was always obtained while using the Ir complex bearing a valine based NHC. The yields were consistently high with a variety of imine substrates having different steric and electronic demands.