A sustainable procedure for highly enantioselective organocatalyzed Diels-Alder cycloadditions in homogeneous ionic liquid/water phase

The MacMillan iminium catalyst was investigated for asymmetric Diels-Alder cycloadditions in ionic liquid/H(2)O homogeneous phase. Superior selectivity, product yield, and shorter reaction times were observed in comparison with classical organic solvents. Additional advantages are the easy synthetic procedure, the excellent recovery of products, and the recyclability of the whole system. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.