Recent Trends of Asymmetric Catalysis with Water as a Nucleophile

Abstract

Utilizing water as a reagent is one of the important topics in synthetic organic chemistry due to unique features of water for green chemistry. This review outlines recent trends of asymmetric catalysis with water as a nucleophile, and mainly picks up transition-metal catalyzed asymmetric allylic substitution with a water nucleophile and enantioselective O-H insertion of α-aryldiazoesters with water. Former one contains a mechanistically rare example that the enantioselection occurs in the nucleophilic attack of metal hydroxide species to electrophiles.