Unsymmetrical ferrocenylethylamine-derived monophosphoramidites: highly efficient chiral ligands for Rh-catalyzed enantioselective hydrogenation of enamides and alpha-dehydroamino acid derivatives.

[reaction: see text] A new family of unsymmetrical ferrocenylethylamine-derived monophosphoramidites were synthesized and successfully applied in the Rh-catalyzed enantioselective hydrogenation of a range of enamides and alpha-dehydroamino acid esters, and ee values of up to 99.5% were obtained for both types of substrate. These results suggest that unsymmetrical amine-derived monophosphoramidites can also exhibit excellent enantioselectivity for a broad range of substrates, comparable to or higher than those of the most efficient symmetrical amine-derived monophosphoramidites reported thus far.