Iodine monochloride-amine complexes: An experimental and computational approach to new chiral electrophiles

Lactonizations are important steps in many synthetic sequences. Substrate-controlled reactions that use chiral auxiliaries or chiral alkenes have already been studied in depth. This study focuses on stereoselective reagent-controlled iodolactonizations, by application of a new method that uses complexes of iodine monochloride and various donor molecules. (R)-1,2,3,4-Tetrahydro-l-naphthylamine and other amines with similar structures were found to be efficient in the iodocyclization of 4-aryl-4-pentenoic acids. Calculations were performed on complexes of (R)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-l-naphthylamine with XCl (X=I, H) to identify possible reactive species in these iodo-cyclizations. Calculations were carried out at various levels of theory, including B3LYP/6-31 + G (d,p) by using a modified SDD basis set for iodine.