Syntheses of Chiral Ferrocenophanes and Their Application to Asymmetric Catalysis
N-Substituted 2-aza-[3]-ferrocenophanes were easily synthesized from 1,1′-ferrocenedicarbaldehyde and aliphatic amines in high yields. One of the ferrocenophanes served as a ligand for the copper-catalyzed oxidative coupling of 2-naphthol derivatives to give the products in good yields with up to 92 % ee, and it also efficiently catalyzed the asymmetric Michael addition reaction as an organocatalyst.