Synthesis of chiral plane-extended pyridyl alcohols for the enantioselective addition of diethylzinc to aldehydes

Abstract

Enantiomerically pure pyridyl alcohols, 1 and 2, were prepared from readily available racemic pyridyl alcohol 3 and applied to the enantioselective addition of diethylzinc to aldehydes resulting in moderately high enantiomeric excess (90%) in the case of benzaldehyde. In this study the first example of an alteration in the configuration of the product upon change of a non-chiral and non-coordinating part of the catalyst was observed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.