Furanoside thioether–phosphinite ligands for Pd-catalyzed asymmetric allylic substitution reactions: Scope and limitations

A series of readily available thioether–phosphinite ligands has been tested in the Pd-catalyzed allylic substitution reactions of several acyclic and cyclic allylic substrates (S1–S7). This series of ligands have been designed to uncover their important structural features and to determine the scope of the thioether–phosphinite ligands in these catalytic reactions. Systematic variation of the electronic and steric properties at the thioether moiety provide useful information about the ligand parameters that control the enantiodiscrimination. By carefully selecting the ligand parameters, good enantioselectivities with high activities were obtained for hindered linear substrates S1 and S2 (ee’s up to 95%) and for unhindered cyclic substrates S4 and S5 (ee’s up to 91%).