Iridium-Catalyzed Allylic Substitution

Iridium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic substitution has become a valuable method to prepare products from the addition of nucleophiles at the more substituted carbon of an allyl unit. The most active and selective catalysts contain a phosphoramidite ligand possessing at least one arylethyl substituent on the nitrogen atom of the ligand. In these systems, the active catalyst is generated by a base-induced cyclometalation at the methyl group of this substituent to generate an iridium metalacycle bound by the COD ligand of the [Ir(COD)Cl](2) precursor and one additional labile dative ligand. Such complexes catalyze the reactions of linear allylic esters with alkylamines, arylamines, phenols, alcohols, imides, carbamates, ammonia, enolates and enolate equivalents, as well as typical stabilized carbon nucleophiles generated from malonates and cyanoesters. Iridium catalysts for enantioselective allylic substitution have also been generated from phosphorus ligands with substituents bound by heteroatoms, and an account of the studies of such systems, along with a description of the development of iridium catalysts is included.