Lihui Zhu, Long Zhang, Sanzhong Luo*

A desymmetrizing dehydrogenation process catalyzed by a chiral primary amine is described herein. The reaction proceeds through the oxidation of a ketone enamine by IBX and enables the highly enantioselective desymmetrization of 4‐substituted cyclohexanones with the generation of chiral 4‐substituted cyclohexenones containing a remote γ‐stereocenter.

This work has been published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2018, 57, 2253-2258.