One-pot Synthesis Of Aryl α-keto Esters From α-ketones And Its Application Exploration In Asymmetric Hydrogenation

α-Keto esters play an essential role in biological processes. They serve as the backbones in some natural products. In addition, arylα-keto esters are also used as key intermediates for the synthesis of bioactive compounds.α-Keto esters also show antisunburn effects.In the past several decades, there was much attention fixed on the synthesis ofα-keto esters. However all these methods involved either strict conditions, or complicated procedures, or in some cases the low yield and all of these drawbacks extremely limited its application. Herein we report a convenient route to synthesizeα-keto esters from aryl-ketones via the one-pot method.Optically pure aryl-α-hydroxyl acid and its derivatives are very important compounds or active intermediates. e.g., (R)-α-hydroxyl-4-phenyl ethyl butyrate is a kind of important intermediate of ACEI (Angiotensin-converting Enzyme Inhibitor). However they are almost obtained from chiral resolution by now. Asymmetric hydrogenation for preparing the optically pure aryl-α-hydroxyl acid and its derivatives is found to be an efficient method, but there is few successful case. Herein we reported a series of new concept chiral ligands to catalyzeα-keto ester to obtain corresponding chiral aryl-α-hydroxyl ester.