Enantiospecific CH Activation Using Ruthenium Nanocatalysts

The activation of CH bonds has revolutionized modern synthetic chemistry. However, no general strategy for enantiospecific CH activation has been developed to date. We herein report an enantiospecific CH activation reaction followed by deuterium incorporation at stereogenic centers. Mechanistic studies suggest that the selectivity for the -position of the directing heteroatom results from a four-membered dimetallacycle as the key intermediate. This work paves the way to novel molecular chemistry on nanoparticles.