A highly enantioselective Friedel–Crafts alkylation of indoles with ethyltrifluoropyruvate has been developed using N,N′-dioxide-zinc(II) complexes. Both enantiomers of the desired adducts were obtained by the use of enantiomeric ligands in excellent results (up to 99% yield and 98% ee) within 0.5 h under mild conditions. On the basis of the experimental results, a proposed working model was proposed
the Friedel-Crafts (FC) reaction of indole with trifluoropyruvate with high generality, yielding the highly enantiomerically enriched FC adduct. Electron-rich indoles have high reactivity due to a dual activation mechanism showing second-order kinetics for CuII, whereas indoles with a soft substituent at C(4) proceed at a rate that is three orders of magnitude lower via a coordination mechanism, which