N-Heterocyclic Carbene-Catalyzed Enantioselective Synthesis of Inherently Chiral Pillar[5]arenes

Catalytic asymmetric synthesis of inherently chiral pillar[5]arene derivatives is promising in materials science, chemical biology, and host-guest chemistry due to their unique pillar structure. In this work, we developed an N-heterocyclic carbene-catalyzed asymmetric intermolecular esterification to construct homo- or heterorimmed inherently chiral pillar[5]arenes with moderate yields and high to excellent enantioselectivities (up to >99% ee). The experimental results showed that the inherently chiral pillar[5]arene diester was highly thermally stable.