Asymmetric construction of tetrahedral chiral zinc with high configurational stability and catalytic activity

Abstract

Unlike traditional chiral metal complexes, which typically contain chiral ligands, in chiral-at-metal complexes chirality originates from a stereogenic metal center bound to achiral ligands. Herein, the authors use an unsymmetric tridentate ligand to construct a Werner-type tetrahedral chiral-at-zinc complex which displays high configurational stability and catalyzes an oxa-Diels-Alder reaction with high yield and enantioselectivity.