Facile access to chiral 4-substituted chromanes through Rh-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation

Rh/ZhaoPhos-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation of a series of (E)-2-(chroman-4-ylidene)acetates was successfully developed to prepare various chiral 4-substituted chromanes with high yields and excellent enantioselectivities (up to 99% yield, 98% ee). Moreover, the gram-scale hydrogenation could be performed well in the presence of 0.02 mol% catalyst loading (TON = 5000), the hydrogenation product was easily converted to access other important compounds, which demonstrated the synthetic utility of this asymmetric catalytic methodology. (C) 2020 Chinese Chemical Society and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.