Effect of Multinuclear Copper/Aluminum Complexes in Highly Asymmetric Conjugate Addition of Trimethylaluminum to Acyclic Enones

Al and friends: asymmetric conjugate addition of Me(3)Al to β,β-disubstituted α,β-unsaturated ketones in the presence copper and L1 leads to a highly efficient construction of an all-carbon-substituted chiral quaternary center. This result is the first example of an asymmetric conjugate addition of Me(3)Al to acyclic enones to give a chiral quaternary carbon center with excellent yield and enantioselectivity under mild reaction conditions.