Synthesis and evaluation of new guanidine-thiourea organocatalyst for the nitro-Michael reaction: Theoretical studies on mechanism and enantioselectivity

• Tatyana E. Shubina,
• Matthias Freund,
• Sebastian Schenker,
• Timothy Clark and
• Svetlana B. Tsogoeva

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2012, 8, 1485–1498, doi:10.3762/bjoc.8.168

• Organic Chemistry I, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Henkestraße 42, 91054, Erlangen, Germany 10.3762/bjoc.8.168 Abstract A new guanidine-thiourea organocatalyst has been developed and applied as bifunctional organocatalyst in the Michael addition reaction of diethyl malonate to trans-β-nitrostyrene

• . Extensive DFT calculations, including solvent effects and dispersion corrections, as well as ab initio calculations provide a plausible description of the reaction mechanism. Keywords: bifunctional organocatalyst; DFT calculations; guanidine-thiourea; Michael addition; organocatalysis; transition states

• guanidine-thiourea organocatalysts would perform as well as or even better than amine-thioureas and imidazole-thioureas. Generally, guanidines are well-known basic catalysts in organic synthesis, but only scattered examples of chiral guanidines as organocatalysts are known [49]. Indeed, only one guanidine