A montmorillonite has been intercalated with Al³⁺ polycations, using concentrated solutions and clay mineral dispersions. The reaction has been assisted by microwave radiation, yielding new intercalated solids and leading to Al-pillared solids after their calcination at 500 °C. The solids were characterized by elemental chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction, FTIR spectroscopy, thermal analyses, and nitrogen adsorption. The evolution of the properties of the materials was discussed as a function of the preparation conditions. Microwave treatment for 2.5 min provided correctly pillared solids.

A new generation of chiral gold(I) catalysts based on variations of complexes with JohnPhos-type ligands with a remote C2-symmetric 2,5-diarylpyrrolidine have been synthesized with different substitutions at the top and bottom aryl rings: from replacing the phosphine by a N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC), to increasing the steric hindrance with bis- or tris-biphenylphosphine scaffolds, or by directly attaching the C2-chiral pyrrolidine in the ortho-position of a dialkylphenyl phosphine. The new chiral gold(I) cata-lysts have been tested in the intramolecular [4+2] cycloaddition of arylalkynes with alkenes and in the atroposelective synthesis of 2-arylindoles. Interestingly, simpler catalysts with the C2-chiral pyrrolidine in the ortho-position of a dialkylphenyl phosphine led to the formation of the opposite enantiomers. The chiral binding pockets of the new catalysts have been analyzed by DFT calcula-tions. As revealed by NCI plots, attractive non-covalent interactions between substrates and catalysts direct the specific enantiose-lective folding. Furthermore, we have introduced the open-source tool NEST, specifically designed to account for steric effects in cylindrical-shaped complexes, which allows predicting experimental enantioselectivities in our systems.