Chiral-at-metal organolanthanides: enantioselective aminoalkene hydroamination/cyclisation with noncyclopentadienyls

Chiral non-racemic complexes [ML{N(SiMe2H)2}(thf)](M = Y, La, H2L = salicylaldimine ligands derived from 2,2´-diamino6,6´-dimethylbiphenyl) are found not to be effective catalysts for the intramolecular hydroamination of aminoalkenes, but new amino/phenoxide ligand designs without reducible functional groups led to long-lived and enantioselective catalysts.