An Unexpected Role of a Trace Amount of Water in Catalyzing Proton Transfer in Phosphine-Catalyzed (3 + 2) Cycloaddition of Allenoates and Alkenes
Yuanzhi Xia(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Yong Liang(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Yuanyuan Chen(Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences), Ming Wang(Peking University), Lei Jiao(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Feng Huang(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Song Liu(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Yahong Li(Peking University), Zhi‐Xiang Yu(Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Cited by 460
Abstract
Through the joint forces of computation and experiment, the detailed mechanism of the Lu phosphine catalyzed (3 + 2) cycloaddition of allenoates and alkenes has been elucidated. The overall potential energy surface of the Lu (3 + 2) reaction has been computed. More importantly, theory and experiment have confirmed that a trace amount of water plays a critical role in assisting the process of [1,2] proton shift in the Lu reaction.