Nature Communications (Aug 2023)

Enantioconvergent construction of stereogenic silicon via Lewis base-catalyzed dynamic kinetic silyletherification of racemic chlorosilanes

  • Tianbao Hu,
  • Chen Zhao,
  • Yan Zhang,
  • Yuzhong Kuang,
  • Lu Gao,
  • Wanshu Wang,
  • Zhishan Su,
  • Zhenlei Song

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40558-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

Read online

Abstract Organosilanes possessing an enantioenriched stereogenic silicon center are important in many branches of chemistry, yet they remain challenging to synthesize in a practical and scalable way. Here we report a dynamic kinetic silyletherification process of racemic chlorosilanes with (S)-lactates using 4-aminopyridine as a Lewis base catalyst. This enantioconvergent approach asymmetrically constructs the stereogenic silicon center in a different manner from traditional resolution or desymmetrization. A range of silylethers have been prepared with high diastereoselectivity on up to 10 g-scale, allowing the practical synthesis of diverse enantioenriched organosilane analogs.