Copper-Catalyzed Enantioselective Acylcyanation of Alkenes

An efficient copper-catalyzed asymmetric
vicinal dicarbofunctionalization
has been developed for the enantioselective acylcyanation of olefins.
The protocol avoids the use of expensive photocatalysts, and showcases
a broad substrate scope to afford various β-cyano ketones with
very high enantiopurity (up to >99:1 er) and yields (up to 86%).
A
preliminary mechanistic study has also been conducted, which provided
valuable insights into the reaction paths. Furthermore, several functional
group transformations in β-cyanoketone have been performed to
show the wide synthetic utility of the strategy.