Stereoselective reactions involving hypervalent silicate complexes

In the last few years the possibility of effectively employing relatively simple organic molecules as enantioselective catalysts able to promote reactions with high levels of chemical efficiency and stereocontrol has been demonstrated. In this context chiral Lewis bases play an important role as promoters of a large variety of stereoselective reactions. In the field of silicon-based chemistry several, new metal-free compounds have recently been developed to efficiently catalyze different reactions where hypervalent silicates are involved as intermediates. The review will present the more recent achievements in silicate-mediated stereoselective reactions catalyzed by chiral Lewis bases. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.