ChemInform Abstract: Enantioselective Iridium-Catalyzed Hydrogenation of β,β-Disubstituted Nitroalkenes

An iridium complex with a newly prepared chiral spiro amino-phosphine ligand efficiently catalyzed the hydrogenation of both β-aryl-β-methyl-nitroalkenes and β-alkyl-β-methyl-nitroalkenes to the corresponding saturated nitroalkanes, which represents the first report of a chiral catalyst that exhibits high enantioselectivity for the challenging hydrogenation of β,β-dialkyl-nitroalkenes.