Origin of Stereoselectivity in FLP-Catalyzed Asymmetric Hydrogenation of Imines

Development of metal-free strategies for stereoselective hydrogenation of unsaturated substrates is of particular interest in asymmetric synthesis. The emerging chemistry of frustrated Lewis pairs offers a promising approach along this line as demonstrated by recent achievements. However, the stereocontrol elements in these reactions are not clearly recognized thus far. Herein, we analyze the origin of stereoinduction in direct hydrogenation of imines catalyzed by a set of chiral boranes. We use the tools of computational chemistry to describe the elementary steps of the catalytic cycle, and we pay special attention to the stereoselectivity-determining hydride transfer process. The enantioselectivities predicted by the applied computational approach are in very good agreement with previous experimental observations. We find that the stereoselectivity is governed by a thermodynamically less favored conformer of the borohydride intermediate and not by the experimentally observed form. The most favored hydride transfer transition states are stabilized by specific aryl-aryl and alkyl-aryl noncovalent interactions, which play an important role in stereoinduction. This computational insight is exploited in proposing additional borane variants to improve the enantioselectivity, which could be demonstrated experimentally