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Updated: Jul 3, 2026

Development of Heterogeneous Enantioselective Catalysts using Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs)
Published on: January 17, 2020
New concepts for organocatalysis
1Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz 1, 45470 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. subhas@mpi-muelheim.mpg.de
Abstract:
Organocatalysis, catalysis with low-molecular weight catalysts in which a metal is not part of the catalytic principle or the reaction substrate, can be as efficient and selective as metal- or biocatalysis. Important discoveries in this area include novel Lewis base-catalyzed enantioselective processes and, more recently, simple Brønsted acid organocatalysts that rival the efficiency of traditional metal-based asymmetric Lewis acid-catalysts. Contributions to organocatalysis from our laboratories include several new and broadly useful concepts such as enamine catalysis and asymmetric counteranion-directed catalysis. Our laboratory has discovered the proline-catalyzed direct asymmetric intermolecular aldol reaction and introduced several other organocatalytic reactions.
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