The design and preparation of novel imidazolinone-backbone chiral N,P ligands and their highly effective performances in enantioselective allylations.

Based on a patented new concept of general chiral catalysis, a series of new chiral ligands integrating both a MacMillan imidazolinone organocatalyst and a chiral N,P-ligand scaffold has been designed and concisely prepared from commercially available chiral α-amino acids and 2-diphenylphosphino-benzaldehyde. These chiral ligands have shown good to excellent enantioselectivities (up to 97% ee) with satisfactory yields (up to 95%) in enantioselective Pd-catalyzed allylations with 1,3-dicarbonyls and amines.