Preparation of chitosan-supported urea materials and their application in some organocatalytic procedures.

An efficient and mild procedure was developed for the preparation of three chitosan-supported ureas containing electron-withdrawing groups. These catalysts were characterized and employed as organocatalysts in different transformations, including the enantioselective cyanosilylation of α-ketoesters and aldehydes, the asymmetric addition of formaldehyde tert-butyl hydrazone to prochiral α-ketoesters and a Friedel-Crafts reaction. Several parameters that can affect the activity and selectivity of the reactions were analysed. The supported catalysts can be reused for more than 10 cycles with only a small loss in their properties. Finally, theoretical DFT calculations were carried out to interpret the results of the catalysed reactions.