Aziridination

Abstract

AbstractAziridines, smallest three‐membered nitrogen‐containing heterocycles, are important subunits of several natural products. They also function efficiently as removable chiral auxiliaries for asymmetric alkylation and aldol transformations. The ring strain in aziridines renders them susceptible to ring‐opening reactions that dominate their chemistry.Catalytic aziridination, of late, has assumed a prominent role. Several comprehensive reviews have been written. The present article, in addition to giving an insight into aziridine chemistry, mechanism, etc., delves more deeply into various catalytic aziridination protocol, both for racemic as well as for chiral aziridines. Several selected approaches to catalytic aziridination transformations and their advantages have been described, bringing out distinctly the importance of aziridination strategy in synthetic organic chemistry. The authors' own latest contributions via the introduction of a new and superior reagent for aziridination, bromamine‐T, is also described. Future strategies in aziridination chemistry is expected to emphasize on catalytic asymmetric aziridination and development of efficient ligands.