Easily accessible chiral imidazolinium salts bearing two hydroxy-containing substituents as shift reagents and carbene precursors

The behavior of new enantiopure imidazolinium salts bearing two hydroxy-containing substituents as chiral shift reagents and as carbene precursors for diethylzinc addition to aldehydes is presented. The new hydroxy-containing imidazolinium salts can be prepared in a few steps from amino alcohols and qualify as new tridentate ligands and ionic liquids. (c) Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2006.