Combinatorial synthesis of functionalized chiral and doubly chiral ionic liquids and their applications as asymmetric covalent/non-covalent bifunctional organocatalysts.

A facile combinatorial strategy was developed for the construction of libraries of functionalized chiral ionic liquids (FCILs) including doubly chiral ionic liquids and bis-functional chiral ionic liquids. These FCIL libraries have the potential to be used as asymmetric catalysts or chiral ligands. As an example, novel asymmetric bifunctional catalysts were developed by simultaneously incorporating functional groups onto the cation and anion. The resultant bis-functionalized CILs showed significantly improved stereoselectivity over the mono-functionalized parent CILs.