Highly enantioselective diethylzinc addition to imines employing readily available N-monosubstituted amino alcohols.

An easily accessible chiral ligand 3c, which promoted diethylzinc addition to imines with 96-98% ee, has been found by finely screening N,N-disubstituted and N-monosubstituted amino alcohols. N-monosubstituted amino alcohols, on average, gave slightly higher enantioselectivities than their N,N-disubstituted analogues. These results imply that the restricted and rigid structure of amino alcohol is not the absolute requirement for the highly enantioselective dialkylzinc addition to diphenylphosphinoylimines. [structure: see text]