Rhodium-Catalyzed Asymmetric Arylation of Benzophenone Derivatives

Rhodium-catalyzed asymmetric arylation reactions provide one of the most straightforward and powerful ways to introduce aryl fragments in an enantioselective manner. In principle, any reaction that involves Rh-catalyzed asymmetric addition of an aryl group to a double or triple bond is called “Rh-catalyzed asymmetric arylation” (RCAA). Due to because special reactivity and selectivity of rhodium complexes compared to other catalytic systems, significant attention has been paid to the use of rhodium catalysts in the formation of C−C bonds. In this kind of reactions, highly efficient asymmetric catalysis has been achieved by employing a chiral ligand. [1-3] Asymmetric addition of aryl group to diaryl carbonyl compounds is a best method to afford chiral benzylic alcohol. In this work, the addition of various aryl groups to benzophenone derivatives took place in the presence of different rhodium/chiral diene ligand catalysts and the chiral alcohols were produced in high yields with high enantioselectivity (Scheme 1).