Diastereoselective Preparation of Chiral-at-metal Organometallic Complexes using a Chelating Sulfoxide-Carboxylate Ligand.

Using the bidentate Ligand (R)-2-[(R)-phenylsulfinyl]propionic acid (1), a range of new chiral-at-metal complexes of general formula [(L)M(S,O)Cl] have been prepared where L = Cp*, M = Rh-III (2), Ir-III (3), L = p-cymene, M = Ru-II (4), Os-II (5) and L = C-6(CH3)(6), M = Ru-II (6) and S,O is the monoanion obtained from the K(t-BuO) deprotonation of 1. Molecular structures for 2-6 are reported, confirming that these complexes are formed with excellent stereospecificity at the metal center in moderate (59%, 6) to excellent (92%, 3) isolated single-isomer yields.