Asymmetric multifunctionalization of alkynes via photo-irradiated organocatalysis

Alkynes represent a family of pivotal and sustainable feedstocks for various industries such as pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and materials, and they are widely used as important starting materials for the production of a broad range of chemical entities. Nevertheless, efficient structural elaborations of alkynes in chemical synthesis, especially asymmetric multifunctionalization of alkynes, remain largely unexplored. It is thus imperative to develop new asymmetric synthetic approaches, making use of these richly available chemical feedstocks, and enabling their conversion to value-added chiral molecules. Here, we disclose our findings on highly enantioselective multifunctionalization of alkynes by merging photochemistry and chiral phosphoric acid catalysis. Our reported one-pot synthetic protocol is applicable to all types of alkyne substrates, incorporating all three reactants in a fully atom-economic fashion to produce optically enriched tetrasubstituted triaryl- and diarylmethanes, important structural scaffolds in medicinal chemistry and biological sciences.