Zirconocene catalyzed diastereoselective carbometalation of cyclobutenesElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Experimental procedures, spectroscopic data and copies of 1H and 13C NMR spectra. See DOI: 10.1039/c6sc02617f

The regio- and diastereoselective zirconocene-catalyzed carbomagnesiation of cyclobutenes is herein reported to afford configurationally stable cyclobutylmagnesium species that could subsequently react with a large variety of electrophiles to give polysubstituted cyclobutane species as a single diastereoisomer. We functionalize cyclobutene species into polysubstituted metalated cyclobutanes through the Dzhemilev reaction.