Unraveling the Importance of Noncovalent Interactions in Asymmetric Hydroformylation Reactions.

For catalytic asymmetric hydroformylation (AHF) of alkenes to chiral aldehydes, though a topic of high interest, the contemporary developments remain largely empirical owing to rather limited molecular insights on the origin of enantioselectivity. Given this gap, herein, we present the mechanistic details of Rh-(,)-YanPhos-catalyzed AHF of α-methylstyrene, as obtained through a comprehensive DFT (ω-B97XD and M06) study. The challenges with the double axially chiral YanPhos, bearing an -benzyl BINOL-phosphoramidite and a BINAP-bis(3,5--Bu-aryl)phosphine, are addressed through exhaustive conformational sampling.