A Facile Assembly of Bifunctional, Magnetically Retrievable Mesoporous Silica for Enantioselective Cascade Reactions

Magnetically recoverable catalysts have attracted considerable interest due to the environmentally friendly and sustainable process. However, the construction of bifunctional magnetic catalysts for sequential enantioselective organic transformations is still a great challenge. Here we report an integrated immobilization strategy to encapsulate the Pd/C-coated magnetic nanoparticles within the chiral Ru/diamine-functionalized silica shell, forming a bifunctional magnetic catalyst. This catalyst realizes a synergistic Suzuki cross-coupling/asymmetric transfer hydrogenation and a successive reduction/asymmetric transfer hydrogenation for the preparation of chiral aromatic alcohols, where the practical recycling via magnetic separation highlights a feasible approach for sequential organic transformations.