Rhodium‐Catalyzed Asymmetric Synthesis of 3,3‐Disubstituted 1‐Indanones

Rapid access to enantioenriched indanones that are difficult to obtain by other methods is gained through the highly enantioselective addition of aryl boronates to aryl alkynyl ketones under rhodium catalysis (see scheme). The resulting 3,3-disubstituted 1-indanones can be converted into a range of potentially useful indan derivatives with high stereoselectivity. R1=Si(alkyl)3, GeEt3; R2=F, Me, OMe; cod=1,5-cyclooctadiene.