Asymmetric Catalysis with Substitutionally Labile yet Stereochemically Stable Chiral-at-Metal Iridium(III) Complex

A metal-coordination-based high performance asymmetric catalyst utilizing metal centrochirality as the sole element of chirality is reported. The introduced substitutionally labile chiral-at-metal octahedral iridium(III) complex exclusively bears achiral ligands and effectively catalyzes the enantioselective Friedel-Crafts addition of indoles to alpha,beta-unsaturated 2-acyl imidazoles (19 examples) with high yields (75%-99%) and high enantioselectivities (90-98% ee) at low catalyst loadings (0.25-2 mol %). Counterintuitively, despite its substitutional lability, which is mechanistically required for coordination to the 2-acyl imidazole substrate, the metal-centered chirality is maintained throughout the catalysis. This novel class of reactive chiral-at-metal complexes will likely be of high value for a large variety of asymmetric transformations.