Novel Dendritic Ligands of Chiral 1,2-Diamine and Their Application in Asymmetric Hydrogenation of Simple Aryl Ketones

Novel dendritic chiral vicinal diamine ligands have been synthesized and a series of dendritic Ru(BINAP)(diamine) catalysts were developed for asymmetric hydrogenation of a variety of simple aryl ketones in good catalytic activity and high enantioselectivity, as well as facile catalyst recycling. An increase of enantioselectivities was obtained by using the dendritic catalysts compared with Noyori catalysts under the same conditions in the case of several substrates. Meanwhile, a remarkable structural effect on catalytic activity and enantioselectivity, as well as reuse was observed.