Stereoselective Access to Fully Substituted Aldehyde Silyl Enol Ethers by Iridium-Catalyzed Alkene Isomerization

In the presence of 1 mol% of an Ir-based catalyst, simple allylic silyl ethers are transformed into valuable, fully substituted aldehyde-derived silyl enol ethers. Importantly, by judicious choice of substrate, either of the two possible stereoisomers of a given enolate derivative is accessible with complete stereoselectivity. One-pot isomerization-aldol and isomerization-allylation processes illustrate the synthetic utility of this method.