Copper(I)-catalyzed asymmetric alkene aziridination mediated by PhI(OAc)2: a facile one-pot procedure

A facile one-pot procedure for copper-catalyzed PhI(OAc)2-mediated asymmetric alkene aziridination had been developed. Commercially available PhI(OAc)2 and sulfonamides were used to generate the nitrene precursors (PhINR) in situ for olefin aziridination. This one-pot procedure had been optimized using 4-nitrobenzenesulfonamide as the nitrene source. With 5 mol % of the chiral copper catalyst, these conditions afforded 94% yield of the isolated product with 75% ee. We had also developed a simple and rapid method to monitor the rate of this one-pot aziridination.