Synthesis of enantiopure sulfonimidamides and elucidation of their absolute configuration by comparison of measured and calculated CD spectra and X-ray crystal structure determination.

Straightforward syntheses of enantiopure N-benzoyl- and N-tert-butyloxycarbonyl-protected sulfonimidamides, which can be used as building blocks in newly designed catalysts, are presented. Key synthetic step is a dynamic resolution of a racemic sulfinic acid sodium salt. All subsequent transformations proceed stereospecifically. The absolute configurations at the sulfur atoms of both sulfonimidamides were determined by comparison of measured and calculated CD spectra. An X-ray crystal structure determination of a sulfonimidoylguanidine derivative confirmed this result.