Corinna Reisinger has developed a new organocatalytic asymmetric epoxidation of cyclic and acyclic α,β-unsaturated ketones. In this thesis, Corinna documents her methodology, using primary amine salts as catalysts, and hydrogen peroxide as an inexpensive and environmentally benign oxidant. She describes the unprecedented and powerful catalytic asymmetric hydroperoxidation of α,β-enones, a process which produces optically active five-membered cyclic peroxyhemiketals in a single operation. She also proves the versatility and synthetic value of the cyclic peroxyhemiketals by converting them into highly enantioenriched acyclic and cyclic aldol products. Currently, these cyclic aldol products are inaccessible by any other synthetic means. Furthermore, cyclic peroxyhemiketals are precursors to optically active 1,2-dioxolanes which are of biological relevance. This work is a breakthrough in the field of asymmetric epoxidation chemistry and outlines the most efficient method in the literature for generating highly enantioselective cyclic epoxyketones known to date.

Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical that is becoming increasingly fashionable as an oxidant, both in industry and in academia and whose production is expected to increase significantly in the next few years. This growth in interest is largely due to environmental considerations related to the clean nature of hydrogen peroxide as an oxidant, its by-product being only water. To date this chemical has largely been employed as a non-selective oxidant in operations like the bleaching of paper, cellulose and textiles, or in the formulation of detergents, and only to a minimal extent in the manufacture of organic chemicals. This book has been organized to cover the different aspects of the chemistry of hydrogen peroxide. The various chapters into which the book is divided have been written critically by the authors with the general aim of stimulating new ideas and emphasizing those aspects that are likely to lead to new developments in organic synthesis in the coming future.

This successful textbook undergoes a change of character in the third edition. Where earlier editions covered organic polymer chemistry, the third edition covers both physical and organic chemistry. Thus kinetics and thermodynamics of polymerization reactions are discussed. This edition is also distinct from all other polymer textbooks because of its coverage of such currently hot topics as photonic polymers, electricity conducting polymers, polymeric materials for immobilization of reagents and drug release, organic solar cells, organic light emitting diodes. This textbook contains review questions at the end of every chapter, references for further reading, and numerous examples of commercially important processes.

The first handbook to focus on the asymmetric synthesis of different types of three-membered rings. The outstanding and experienced authors have an excellent international reputation and cover cyclopropanes, epoxides and aziridines as well as chiral oxaziridines in equal measure. To this end, they describe in detail different synthetic approaches starting with chiral substrates as well as the application of chiral metal- or organocatalysts. Furthermore, methods for the kinetic resolution of initially racemic products are treated alongside recent advances and novel developments in established techniques for the synthesis of three-membered rings. With its structured composition this is of high interest to scientists in methodological and natural product synthesis as well as those in industrial and pharmaceutical chemistry.

This three-volume set represents the first comprehensive coverage of the rapidly expanding field of Lewis base catalysis that has attracted enormous attention in recent years. Lewis base catalysis is a conceptually novel paradigm that encompasses an extremely wide variety of preparatively useful transformations and is particularly effective for enantioselectively constructing new stereogenic centers. As electron-pair donors, Lewis bases can influence the rate and stereochemical course of myriad synthetic organic reactions. The book presents the conceptual/mechanistic principles that underlie Lewis base catalysis, and then builds upon that foundation with a thorough presentation of many different reaction types. And last but not least, the editors, Prof. Edwin Vedejs and Prof. Scott E. Denmark, are without doubt the leaders in this emerging field and have compiled high quality contributions from an impressive collection of international experts.