Département de chimie moléculaire

Access to chiral polysubstituted cyclobutanones by [2+2]-cycloaddn. of ketenes with chiral acyclic enol ethers is reported. A wide variety of easily accessible di- and monosubstituted ketenes were found to react with a very high degree of stereoselectivity with chiral, stericol-derived, acyclic enol ethers. This combination of simple reagents provides straightforward entry to highly substituted enantioenriched cyclobutanones, e.g., I.