Asymmetric hydrosilylation, transfer hydrogenation and hydrogenation of ketones catalyzed by iridium complexes

Iridium-based asymmetric reduction of ketones to chiral enantiomerically enriched alcohols has recently attracted attention by a number of research groups and interest in this area is growing. This review presents the different catalytic systems based on iridium complexes that have been used in asymmetric hydrosilylation, in asymmetric transfer hydrogenation (ATH) with alcohols or formic acid derivatives as reducing agents, and in asymmetric hydrogenation (H-2 as reducing agent). A large variety of chiral ligands of various denticities and bearing various combination of coordinating atoms (N, P, S, O, C, ...) have been used and will be presented. The last part critically reviews the mechanistic understanding of all the above transformations with specific reference to iridium catalysts. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.