Iodine Monochloride–Amine Complexes: An Experimental and Computational Approach to New Chiral Electrophiles

Lactonizations are important steps in many synthetic sequences. Substrate-controlled reactions that use chiral auxiliaries or chiral alkenes have already been studied in depth. This study focuses on stereoselective reagent-controlled iodolactonizations, by application of a new method that uses complexes of iodine monochloride and various donor molecules. (R)-1,2,3,4-Tetrahydro-1-naphthylamine and other amines with similar structures were found to be efficient in the iodocyclization of 4-aryl-4-pentenoic acids. Calculations were performed on complexes of (R)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-1-naphthylamine with XCl (X = I, H) to identify possible reactive species in these iodocyclizations. Calculations were carried out at various levels of theory, including B3 LYP/6-31+G (d,p) by using a modified SDD basis set for iodine.