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It is important to find a way for separation of concerned chemicals from product mixture after reaction, in order to avoid spreading harmful chemicals to society. The homogeneous nature of DMAP-catalyzed acylation still suffers from the problems of catalyst separation and/or residual DMAP contamination. DMAP causes acute dermal toxicity, whereas the corresponding DMAP salt exhibits only slight irritation to the skin. Very recently, we found that the DMAP saccharinate salt is also great recyclable catalyst, whose acylation of alcohols has been successfully and effectively carried out 10 times without loss in activity. This report covers our comprehensive studies on using the pyridinium saccharinate salts as efficient recyclable acylation catalysts including 4-N,N-dimethylaminopyridinium saccharinate (A), 4-(1-pyrrolidinyl) pyridinium saccharinate (B), 2-N,N-dimethylaminopyridinium saccharinate (C), and pyridinium saccharinate (D). Their structure and reactivity have been studied. The salts A, C, and D contain very interesting seven-membered synthon showing multiple H-bonding interactions for pair of pyridinium cation and saccharinate anion in the solid state. The salt B exhibits H-bonding interaction of N(sac) … H–N(py) in the solid state, instead of seven-membered synthon. The catalytic reactivity studies show that salts A and B are both very effective, with salt B even better in reactivity, and are both recyclable in the esterification of a variety of alcohols, under solvent-free and base-free conditions at room temperature.

Chiral amino alcohol promoted one-pot addition of zinc alkynylides to α-keto esters and kinetic resolution of the resulting tertiary propargylic alcohols was developed. The reaction provided us an alternative approach to access optically active tertiary α-hydroxy-β-ynyl esters with enantiomeric excesses up to 98%.

Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [2010121014]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [21133004]

An amino-linked nitrogen heterocyclic carbene mediates the carbon—carbon coupling reaction through direct C—H functionalization of benzene (II) and pyridine (IV) with aryl iodides (I) in the absence of a metal catalyst.

Here, we report insights into the new recyclable catalyst 1, (DMAP·saccharin). The DMAP·saccharin-catalysed acylation of alcohols has been successfully carried out more than 8 times. Only 1 mol% of catalyst 1 efficiently promotes acylation with almost equimolar amounts of acid anhydrides, under both base-free and solvent-free conditions.

t-BuOK was found to be an effective promoting reagent for tandem ring-opening/closing reactions of various N-Ts aziridines and aryl propargyl alcohols to afford dihydroxazine derivatives in moderate to good yields. A plausible reaction mechanism has been proposed.

A new catalytic system ([Ru(p-cymene)Cl-2](2)/I-2) has been developed for the hydrogenation of quinoline derivatives with high reactivity. For the 2-methyl-quinoline, the hydrogenation reaction can proceed smoothly at an S/C of 20,000/1 with complete conversion. The iodine additive is important for the reactivity. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The highly enantioselective hydrogenation of quinoline derivatives is developed using [Ir(COD)Cl]2/(R)-MeO-Biphep/I2 system, and this methodology has been applied to the asymmetric synthesis of three naturally occurring alkaloids angustureine, galipinine, and cuspareine. This method provided an efficient access to a variety of optically active tetrahydroquinolines with up to 96% ee.