Design, Synthesis, and Application of a Chiral Sulfinamide Phosphine Catalyst for the Enantioselective Intramolecular Rauhut-Currier Reaction

A novel class of chiral sulfinamide phosphine catalysts (Xiao-Phos) are reported, which can be easily prepared from inexpensive commercially available starting materials. The Xiao-Phos catalysts showed good performance in enantioselective intramolecular Rauhut-Currier reactions, generating -methylene--butyrolactones in high yields with up to 99% ee under mild conditions. Moreover, kinetic resolution and parallel kinetic resolution were also observed with the use of two different substituted racemic precursors.