General Catalytic Synthesis of Highly Enantiomerically Enriched Terminal Aziridines from Racemic Epoxides

If life deals you a lemon …︁: Low selectivity in the [Co(salen)]-catalyzed kinetic resolution of terminal epoxides with N-Boc sulfonamides is parlayed into an efficient one-pot synthesis of enantiopure amino alcohol derivatives. This provides the foundation for a general route to the title compounds (see scheme; Boc=tert-butoxycarbonyl; Ns=2-nitrobenzenesulfonyl).