Enantioselective, Bro̷nsted Acid-Catalyzed -selective Hydroamination of Alkenes.

Chiral pyrrolidines are common structural motives in natural products as well as active pharmaceutical ingredients, explaining the need for methods for their enantioselective synthesis. While several, often metal-catalyzed, methods for their preparation do exist, the enantioselective synthesis of pyrrolidines containing quaternary stereocenters remains challenging. Herein, we report a Bro̷nsted acid-catalyzed intramolecular hydroamination that provides such pyrrolidines from simple starting materials in high yield and enantioselectivity.

Enantioselective Dihalogenation of Alkenes.

The dihalogenation of alkenes is one of the classic reactions in organic chemistry and a prime example of an electrophilic addition reaction. The often observed anti-selectivity in this addition reaction can be explained by the formation of a haliranium-ion intermediate. Although dihalogenations have been studied for more than a century, the development of reagent-controlled, enantioselective dihalogenation has proved to be very difficult.