Ruthenium-Catalyzed Enantioselective Hydrogenation/Lactonization of 2-Acylarylcarboxylates: Direct Access to Chiral 3-Substituted Phthalides

Highly enantioselective tandem hydrogenation/lactonization of various 2-acylarylcarboxylates including 2-aroylarylcarboxylates were realized by using [RuCl(benzene)(S)-SunPhos]Cl as the catalyst under mild reaction conditions. Excellent enantioselectivities (up to 99.6% ee) and activities (S/C=1000) were obtained. This convenient and practical method enables a direct access to a series of highly optically pure 3-substituted phthalides that are very important molecules as valuable pharmacological compounds and diversified synthons for medicinal chemistry. Moreover, a gram-scale reaction was performed to further demonstrate the practicality of this approach.