Copper-Catalyzed Asymmetric Allylic Alkylation

Significance

The authors describe mechanistic studies on the kinetic resolution of racemic linear allyl chlorides. Following their work on the alkylation of cyclic substrates (Chem. Commun. 2009, 3868), this work reveals a much more complex stereodivergent resolution yielding products as mixtures of E/Z isomers. In addition to the interesting mechanistic insight of this work, the product mixture could be convergently transformed to afford chiral synthons in high yields.