Chiral-at-Iron Catalyst: Expanding the Chemical Space for Asymmetric Earth-Abundant Metal Catalysis.

A new class of chiral iron catalysts is introduced that contains exclusively achiral ligands with the overall chirality being the result of a stereogenic iron center. Specifically, iron(II) is cis-coordinated to two N-(2-pyridyl)-substituted N-heterocyclic carbene (PyNHC) ligands in a bidentate fashion in addition to two monodentate acetonitriles, and the dicationic complex is complemented by two hexafluorophosphate ions. Depending on the helical twist of the PyNHC ligands, the metal center adopts either a Λ or Δ absolute configuration. Importantly, the two PyNHC ligands are constitutionally and configurationally inert, while the two acetonitriles are labile and allow asymmetric transition metal catalysis. This is demonstrated with an enantioselective Cannizzaro reaction (96% yield, 88% ee) and an asymmetric Nazarov cyclization (89% yield, >20:1 dr, 83% ee).