Catalytic asymmetric arylation of aliphatic aldehydes using a B/Zn exchange reaction

Abstract Herein we describe the arylation of aliphatic aldehydes using the boron/zinc exchange reaction for the generation of transferable aryl groups, in the presence of chiral amino alcohol ligands. For the first time, a systematic investigation of this reaction using aliphatic aldehydes was developed and we have found that it proved to be significantly more challenging than the arylation of aromatic aldehydes. The corresponding chiral secondary alcohols were obtained in up to 73% ee.