Chiral amine/chiral acid as an excellent organocatalytic system for the enantioselective tandem oxa-Michael-aldol reaction.

The asymmetric tandem oxa-Michael-aldol reaction of salicylic aldehyde derivatives with alpha,beta-unsaturated aldehydes catalyzed by a chiral amine/chiral acid organocatalytic system was investigated. The organocatalytic system of (S)-diphenylpyrrolinol trimethylsilyl ether with chiral shift reagent (S)-Mosher acid presented a synergistic effect in the improvement of reaction performance and offered an efficient steric effect in the transformation. The tandem oxa-Michael-aldol reaction proceeded with high yields (up to 90%) and with excellent ee values (up to 99%) to give the corresponding chromene derivatives. The structure of the chiral ammonium salt formed in situ and the corresponding mechanism were also studied by (1)H NMR.