New and improved ligands for highly enantioselective catalytic diphenylzinc additions to aryl aldehydes

By introducing electron-withdrawing fluorine atoms to a chiral 1,1′-binaphthyl ligand (R)-1, a new catalyst (S)-5d has been obtained which shows improved catalytic properties for the asymmetric diphenylzinc addition to aldehydes. This new ligand allows the synthesis of chiral diarylcarbinols with high enantioselectivity in shorter reaction time under simple reaction conditions.