Development and Recent Progress in the Chiral Bronsted Acid Catalyst

Development of efficient chiral catalyst continues to be an important challenge in the fields of synthetic organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry. Although metal-based Lewis acid catalysts had been extensively studied for the activation of carbonyl group and imine, chiral Bronsted acid has emerged in the beginning of 21st century. We synthesized chiral phosphoric acid, derived from (R)-BINOL, and demonstrated its catalytic activity in the Mannich-type reaction as a chiral Bronsted acid in 2004. Chiral phosphoric acid functioned as bifunctional catalyst bearing both basic site and Bronsted acidic site. The 3,3'-substituents play an important role. Since then, chiral phosphoric acid catalysis has become a popular research area, and its utility has been remarkably expanded. In this article, we will describe the development of chiral phosphoric acid and recent progress of the chiral phosphoric acid catalysis from our research group, in particular following topics; 1) transfer hydrogenation reaction of ketimines by use of benzothiazoline as a hydrogen donor, and oxidative kinetic resolution of indolines, 2) Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction of indoles, and 3) enantioselective synthesis of chiral biaryls by bromination and transfer hydrogenation. In addition, several tips for using chiral phosphoric acid are also described.