Nickel-Catalyzed Asymmetric Hydrogenation of 2-Amidoacrylates

Earth-abundant nickel, coordinated with a suitable chiral bisphosphine ligand, was found to be an efficient catalyst for the asymmetric hydrogenation of 2-amidoacrylates, affording the chiral alpha-amino acid esters in quantitative yields and excellent enantioselectivity (up to 96 % ee). The active catalyst component was studied by NMR and HRMS, which helped us to realize high catalytic efficiency on a gram scale with a low catalyst loading (S/C=2000). The hydrogenated products could be simply converted into chiral alpha-amino acids, beta-amino alcohols, and their bioactive derivatives. Furthermore, the catalytic mechanism was investigated using deuterium-labeling experiments and computational calculations.