Straightforward Synthesis of Chiral Terpenoid Building Blocks by Ru-Catalyzed Enantioselective Hydrogenation

Starting from commercially available (R)- and (S)-β-citronellol, two strategies were designed to synthesize all four stereoisomers of 2,6-dimethyloctane monoterpene chirons in four or five steps in 32-47% overall yield. The desired fragments were obtained by a key Ru-catalyzed asymmetric olefin hydrogenation step under moderate temperature (50 °C), pressure (4 bar), and low catalyst loadings (0.5 mol %) under optimized conditions. Screening of commercially available catalysts highlighted the key role of DM-SEGPHOS as an economically advantageous alternative to commonly used H8-BINAP for equal performances. These results open new possibilities for versatile and scalable syntheses of these useful building blocks.