The racemic 1-cyclopropylcarbaldehyde
1a was chosen as the model substrate to react with the
N-sulfonyl imine
2a to test the reaction conditions, with key results summarized in
Table 1. We initially tested the reaction using various NHC catalysts in the presence of Cs
2CO
3 and
DQ oxidant in THF at 35 ℃ for 17 h (
Table 1, entries 1–6). The non-chiral NHC catalysts bearing electron-rich
N-aryl substituents (
e.g.,
A &
B) were not efficient for this transformation (entries 1 and 2). The target product
3a can be afforded in a promissing yield when using the NHC catalyst
C bearing
N-2, 4, 6-trichlorophenyl group (entry 3). Further decreasing the electron density of the NHC catalyst resulted in no formation of the desired product (entry 4,
D). Therefore, different catalyst scaffolds were evaluated with the 2, 4, 6-trichlorophenyl group used as the NHC
N-substituent (entries 5 and 6). To our delight, the target product
3a can be afforded in a moderate yield when using the aminoindanol-derived NHC catalyst
F (entry 6) [
82]. Changing the basic additive into other organic or inorganic bases could not improve the reaction yields (entries 7–9). The reaction could also be carried out in a variety of organic solvents (entries 10–12), and the yield of product
3a could be futher improved to 62% when using DCM as the reaction solvent (entry 10). Lewis acids have been proven to be beneficial to a number of NHC-catalyzed transformations in both reaction efficiency and stereoselectivity. In this regard, a diversity of Lewis acids were tested and Zn(OTf)
2 [
83-
89] was found as the most suitable promoter for the transformation, with the product yield dramatically improved to 91% (entry 14). The Lewis acidic Zn(OTf)
2 was believed to act as coordinators that could bring both of the reactive intermediates close to each other to facilitate the catalytic reaction process.