Benzaldehyde → 1-Phenyl-1-propanol

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Reaction Steps

As can be seen from Table 3, the electronic properties of the substituents on the phenyl ring of the ketone changed the reduction rate but had less effect on the enantioselectivity (18-33%). An acetophenone substituted in the para position by an electron releasing group, such as 4′-methyl and 4′-methoxy, is reduced more slowly than acetophenone (entries 3, 8 and 9). The chloro substituted acetophenones are all reduced faster, especially for the ortho position (entries 3-7). This trend is opposite to the generally observed trend for Noyori's transfer hydrogenation catalysts in which an ortho-Cl substitution decreases the rate of the reduction (S. Hashiguchi, A. Fujii, J. Takehara, T. Ikariya, R. Noyori, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1995, 117, 7562). The catalyst (iii) with KOtBu is also efficient for the transfer hydrogenation of propiophenone, 2-acetonaphthone, benzophenone, benzylacetone, benzaldehyde and N-benzylideneaniline (entries 11-15). The hydrogenation of propiophenone gave 1-phenylpropanol in 61% e.e (S) (entry 10). The more difficult ketimine N-phenyl-(1-phenylethylidene)amine (Ph-CMe=N-Ph) was only partially reduced (<5%) after 18 h under the same conditions (entry 16), while cyclohexanone was not hydrogenated (entry 17). Transfer hydrogenation of unsaturated ketones was complicated by some reduction of the C═C double bond (Scheme 2).

Provenance & Evidence