Transition metal catalyzed asymmetric transformations

Asymmetric catalysis with synthetic chiral catalysts has emerged as an efficient methodology for the production of single enantiomers of compounds. Chiral catalysts are derived from transition metal and chiral ligands. The elegance of the process lies in generating large amounts of optically pure products by employing small quantities of the chiral catalysts. There is a growing need to create new structural motifs for ligand synthesis. This is to aid in improving known catalytic processes and to develop new asymmetric transformations.; The work in this thesis describes the development of a novel Cu(I)-catalyzed 1, 3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction catalyzed by phosphine ligands. A highly efficient asymmetric transformation is achieved with ferrocenyl phosphine-oxazoline ligands (Chapters 1--3). Application of the Cn-Tunephos ligands towards Pd-catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylations forms the content of Chapter 5.; Design and synthesis of novel ligands is core to asymmetric catalysis. A new series of ferrocenyl-P,S ligands have been synthesized and their applications have been demonstrated in Pd-catalyzed alkylations and Rh-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenations (Chapter 4).