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Updated: Dec 1, 2025

Preparation of 6-aminocyclohepta-2,4-dien-1-one Derivatives via Tricarbonyltroponeiron
Published on: August 12, 2019
Enantioselective Iron-Catalyzed Cross-[4+4]-Cycloaddition of 1,3-Dienes Provides Chiral Cyclooctadienes
Elena Braconi1, Alissa C Götzinger1, Nicolai Cramer1
1Laboratory of Asymmetric Catalysis and Synthesis, Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Abstract:
Chiral cyclooctadienes are a frequently occurring scaffold in natural products and specialty chemicals, and are used as ligands in asymmetric catalysis. Accessing substituted cyclooctadienes in an efficient asymmetric fashion has been notoriously challenging. We report an iron-catalyzed enantioselective cross-[4+4]-cycloaddition of 1,3-dienes to form substituted cyclooctadienes under very mild conditions. A highly tailored chiral α-diimine iron complex is key for the success of the transformation providing a balanced performance between reactivity, excellent cross-selectivity and very high enantioselectivity. Steric maps of the complexes help accounting for the observed selectivity. The developed method allows rapid and atom-economic access to novel differently functionalized cyclooctadienes in very high yields and enantioselectivities.
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Cycloaddition Reactions: Overview
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Conjugated systems containing an even number of π-electron pairs undergo a conrotatory ring closure. For example, thermal electrocyclization of (2E,4E)-2,4-hexadiene, a conjugated diene containing two π-electron pairs, gives trans-3,4-dimethylcyclobutene.