title: Homo- and heterocomplexes of sodium and lithium amides--structures in solution.
abstract: Addition of the chiral amine (S)-methyl(1-phenyl-2-pyrrolidinoethyl)[15N]amine (1) to a large excess of nBuNa resulted in the formation of a mixed sodium amide/nBuNa complex. This is the first observation of such a complex. Addition of nBuLi to the chiral sodium amide dimer 3 gave a new mixed lithium/sodium amide 5. The use of 15N,6Li coupling constants showed that the lithium in 5 occupied the tetracoordinated site. The use of chiral sodium amide 3 in the desymmetrization of cyclohexene oxide gave a modest enantiomeric excess (ee) of 37%. The corresponding lithium amide gave an ee of 70% of the same enantiomer. This is the first example of the comparison of asymmetric induction by sodium as cation with that of lithium.
authors.affiliation: Department of Organic Chemistry, Göteborg University, Sweden. anna.johansson@organic.gu.se
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Johansson
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Davidsson