Ni-catalyzed, enantioselective three-component radical relayed reductive coupling of alkynes: Synthesis of axially chiral styrenes

Axially chiral styrenes are of great interest because they could serve as a class of novel chiral ligands in enantioselective synthesis. However, only recently have strategies been developed for their enantioselective preparation. Herein, we have developed a Ni-catalyzed, enantioselective, three-component radical relayed reductive coupling to rapidly construct axially chiral styrene. This three-component radical relayed reductive coupling strategy utilizes a chiral nickel/pyridine-oxazoline system to facilitate the challenging three-component, enantioselective difunctionalization of alkynes with high efficiency and excellent enantioselectivity. The mild conditions allow for broad substrate scopes as well as good functional-group toleration. We performed computational mechanistic studies to gain insights into the mechanism and origin of the chemo- and enantioselectivity. Furthermore, the reaction could be scaled up, and the resulting axially chiral styrenes could be easily transformed into 1-(1-phenylvinyl)naphthalene phosphine ((s)-SJTU-PHOS-1) with high stereoselectivities, which showed great promise as a new type of styrene ligand.