Applications of chiral phosphine-based organocatalysts in catalytic asymmetric reactions

Abstract

Chiral phosphines are versatile Lewis basic catalysts that are capable of promoting a wide range of asymmetric reactions. In particular, recently designed chiral phosphines based on the concept of bi-/multifunctionality have been demonstrated to be effective catalysts for many types of asymmetric reactions, such as (aza)-MBH reactions, cycloaddition reactions, and nucleophilic addition reactions. This short overview summarizes the recent advances in this field and highlights the most-significant achievements.

Keywords: asymmetric catalysis; cycloaddition; organocatalysis; phosphines; zwitterions.