Applications

Chiral cyclopropenimines are highly effective new class of enantioselective Brønsted base catalysts, the so-called “superbases” for enantioselective organocatalysis.

Due to the prevalence of chemical reactions involving proton transfer as a key mechanistic event, Brønsted bases have become indispensable tools for the practice of organic synthetic chemistry, capable of catalyzing proton transfer reactions enantioselectively for the production of optically enriched products.

Novel Brønsted bases provide potent yet tunable basicity to the acidity of a given substrate, are trivial to prepare, and offer unique opportunities for asymmetric transition state organization. The high basicity should allow them to catalyze a wide range of reactions (i.e. chiral pharmaceutical ingredients) and could lead to easier and faster syntheses of novel chiral compounds for drug discovery and other applications.

2,3-bis(dialkylamino)cyclopropenimin