α-Isocupreine, an enantiocomplementary catalyst of β-isocupreidine

Catalytic hydrogenation of alkenes is a transition-metal catalyzed reduction of the double bond using molecular hydrogen to give alkanes. The mode of hydrogen addition follows syn stereochemistry.
The metal catalyst used can be either heterogeneous or homogeneous. When hydrogenation of an alkene generates a chiral center, a pair of enantiomeric products is expected to form. However, an enantiomeric excess of one of the products can be facilitated using an enantioselective reaction or an...

The concept of prochirality leads to the nomenclature of the individual faces of a molecule and plays a crucial role in the enantioselective reaction. It is a concept where two or more achiral molecules react to produce chiral products. A typical process is the reaction of an achiral ketone to generate a chiral alcohol. Here, the achiral reactant reacts with an achiral reducing agent, sodium borohydride, to generate an equimolar mixture of the chiral enantiomers of the product. For example, an...

Isomerism in Complexes
Isomers are different chemical species that have the same chemical formula.
Transition metal complexes often exist as geometric isomers, in which the same atoms are connected through the same types of bonds but with differences in their orientation in space. Coordination complexes with two different ligands in the cis and trans positions from a ligand of interest form isomers. For example, the octahedral [Co(NH3)4Cl2]+ ion has two isomers (Figure 1) In the cis...

The Cope rearrangement is classified as a [3,3] sigmatropic shift in 1,5-dienes, leading to a more stable, isomeric 1,5-diene. The reaction involves a concerted movement of six electrons, four from two π bonds and two from a σ bond, via an energetically favorable chair-like transition state.

The Diels–Alder reaction is one of the robust methods for synthesizing unsaturated six-membered rings. The reaction involves a concerted cyclic movement of six π electrons: four π electrons from the diene and two π electrons from the dienophile.

One of the critical aspects of the E1 reaction mechanism, as also observed in E2, is the regiochemistry, with multiple regioisomers obtained as products. In the example discussed, the presence of water as a weak base favors elimination over substitution to generate two alkenes. Given that alkenes’ stability increases with the number of alkyl groups across the double bond, typically, E1 reactions lead to the Zaitsev product, for this is more substituted and stable than the Hofmann product.