Ligand controlled cobalt catalyzed regiodivergent 1,2-hydroboration of 1,3-dienes

A General Strategy for the Asymmetric Preparation of α-Stereogenic Allyl Silanes, Germanes, and Boronate Esters via Dual Copper Hydride- and Palladium-Catalysis

α-Stereogenic allyl metalloids are versatile synthetic intermediates which can undergo various stereocontrolled transformations. Most existing methods to prepare α-stereogenic allyl metalloids involve multi-step sequences that curtail the number of compatible substrates and are limited to the synthesis of boronates. Here, we report a general method for the enantioselective preparation of α-stereogenic allyl metalloids utilizing dual CuH- and Pd-catalysis. This approach leverages a stereoretentive Cu-to-Pd transmetalation of an in situ generated alkyl copper species to allow access to enantioenriched allyl silanes, germanes, and boronate esters with broad functional group compatibility.

First-Row d-Block Element-Catalyzed Carbon-Boron Bond Formation and Related Processes

Organoboron reagents represent a unique class of compounds because of their utility in modern synthetic organic chemistry, often affording unprecedented reactivity. The transformation of the carbon-boron bond into a carbon-X (X = C, N, and O) bond in a stereocontrolled fashion has become invaluable in medicinal chemistry, agrochemistry, and natural products chemistry as well as materials science. Over the past decade, first-row d-block transition metals have become increasingly widely used as catalysts for the formation of a carbon-boron bond, a transformation traditionally catalyzed by expensive precious metals. This recent focus on alternative transition metals has enabled growth in fundamental methods in organoboron chemistry. This review surveys the current state-of-the-art in the use of first-row d-block element-based catalysts for the formation of carbon-boron bonds.

Ligand-Controlled Regiodivergence for Catalytic Stereoselective Semireduction of Allenamides

Ligand-controlled regiodivergence has been developed for catalytic semireduction of allenamides with excellent chemo- and stereocontrol. This system also provides an example of catalytic regiodivergent semireduction of allenes for the first time. The divergence of the semireduction is enabled by ligand switch with the same palladium pre-catalyst under operationally simple and mild conditions. Monodentate ligand XPhos exclusively promotes selective 1,2-semireduction to afford allylic amides, while bidentate ligand BINAP completely switched the regioselectivity to 2,3-semireduction, producing (E)-enamide derivatives.

Photoredox radical borylation of electron-deficient alkenes with NHC-boranes

An efficient photoredox radical borylation of electron-deficient Morita-Baylis-Hillman type alkenes is achieved to afford multi-functionalized allylic boranes. The reaction demonstrates a wide substrate scope and showcases excellent functional group tolerance. It has advantages over the traditional ionic hydroboration methods in the construction of allylic boranes in terms of simple operation, mild conditions, and step-economy.

Versatile cobalt-catalyzed regioselective chain-walking double hydroboration of 1,n-dienes to access gem-bis(boryl)alkanes

Double hydroboration of dienes is the addition of a hydrogen and a boryl group to the two double bonds of a diene molecule and represents a straightforward and effective protocol to prepare synthetically versatile bis(boryl)alkanes, provided that this reaction occurs selectively. However, this reaction can potentially yield several isomeric organoboron products, and it still remains a challenge to control the regioselectivity of this reaction, which allows the selective production of a single organoboron product, in particular, for a broad scope of dienes. By employing a readily available cobalt catalyst, here we show that this double hydroboration yields synthetically useful gem-bis(boryl)alkanes with excellent regioselectivity. In addition, the scope of dienes for this reaction is broad and encompasses a wide range of conjugated and non-conjugated dienes. Furthermore, mechanistic studies indicate that this cobalt-catalyzed double hydroboration occurs through boryl-directed chain-walking hydroboration of alkenylboronates generated from anti-Markovnikov 1,2-hydroboration of 1,n-diene.

Control of regioselectivity in the double hydroboration of dienes to obtain a single organoboron compound is a considerable synthetic challenge. Here, the authors show a cobalt-catalyzed chain-walking double hydroboration of 1,n-dienes to access gem-bis(boryl)alkanes with regioselective control.