Review Study of Chiral N-Heterocyclic Carbene (NHC) Ligands in Stereoselective Metal-Catalyzed Reduction Reactions

Abstract

Stereoselective metal-catalyzed reactions using N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands have shown significant recent advances, due to the ability of NHC ligands as strong σ-donor species to coordinate with a wide variety of transition metals. Therefore, the design of new ligands and the subsequent strategies for their synthesis enables new applications of their metal complexes in catalysis to be investigated. This study focuses on the applications of different classes of Ir-, Pd-, Au- and Rh-NHC ligand complexes as promising catalysts in the asymmetric hydrogenation, hydrosilylation and transfer hydrogenation reactions.