Organic Chemistry Seminar

The electrophilic activation of a substrate by means of a Brønsted acid is the most straightforward and common approach used to promote a reaction and hence Brønsted acids have been widely utilized as efficient catalysts for numerous organic transformations. The development of novel Brønsted acid catalysts has been continuously studied due to their broad synthetic applicability. In the past decade, innovative research on Brønsted acid catalysis has enabled great progress. Specifically, research has focused on chiral Brønsted acid catalysis , in which enantioenriched products are obtained using a catalytic amount of a chiral organic molecule bearing an acidic functionality. Currently, chiral Brønsted acids represent a widely applicable class of catalysts for a variety of enantioselective transformations. In this lecture, I would like to introduce the recent achievements in developing enantioselective carbon-carbon bond forming reactions using 1,1 -bi-2-naphthol (BINOL)-derived phosphoric acids as chiral Brønsted acid catalysts.