Noble Metal Catalysed Reductions and Rearrangements

Abstract: The focus of this thesis has been organometallic catalysis applied to compounds containing heteroatoms which are usually poisonous to metal catalysts, by channelling their innate reactivity advantageously. The studies described in this thesis concentrate, in the first part, on iridium catalysed asymmetric hydrogenation (papers I and II) and in the second part, on gold catalysed internal rearrangements (papers III and IV). In each case, two classes of compounds are studied: pyridinium salts or sulphurous compounds. The asymmetric hydrogenation of pyridinium compounds was performed with 2% loading of N,P-ligated Ir catalyst with I2 additive (paper I) to achieve moderate to good enantiomeric excess (up to 98%). In paper II, olefinic sulphones were hydrogenated with an efficient 0.5% catalytic loading. In most cases full conversion was obtained and with good to excellent ees (up to 99%). The products of these reductions are chiral compounds, which could constitute further chemical building blocks. Palladium and gold were used sequentially in paper III, in order to perform a “Click” thiol-yne reaction followed by a semi-Pinacol rearrangement, leading to isolated yields of up to 98%. In paper IV The gold catalysed rearrangement of alkyl-pyridinium diynes was conducted, with a number of substrates providing >90% NMR yield. A highly selective hydrogenation was performed with a heterogeneous palladium catalyst to yield single diastereomer products. This methodology consists of up to three steps, with two catalysts in one pot.