Synergistic effect of binary component ligands in chiral catalyst library engineering for enantioselective reactions.

This article highlights our recent efforts in the development of highly efficient and cost-effective chiral catalysts for asymmetric reactions through a combinatorial approach by assembling the component ligands (at least one of which is in non-racemic form, while the other might be optically pure, racemic or achiral) with metal ions to generate modular chiral catalyst libraries. The synergistic effect of the binary ligands in terms of both enantioselectivity and activity of the catalysis has been observed in a variety of catalyst systems, including catalysts containing Ti(IV), Zn(II), Rh(I) or Ru(II) ions, for asymmetric hetero-Diels-Alder, carbonyl-ene, alkylation, and hydrogenation reactions, respectively.