Complete control of the product of a catalytic reaction can be achieved on the basis of catalyst structure, even when the reaction conditions are nearly identical. Catalyst-controlled selectivity is well established for enantioselective catalysis but less formulated for catalytic regio-, chemo-, or product-selective reactions. This Review describes selective transformations of the same starting materials into two or more different products simply by the choice of catalyst. By collecting and highlighting examples of selective catalysis, we hope that the field will be encouraged by the progress that has been made while bringing attention to unmet needs in the design and mechanistic understanding of selective catalysts.

The majority of N-heterocyclic carbene catalyzed reactions of α-functionalized aldehydes, including annulations, oxidations, and redox reactions, occur more rapidly with N-mesityl substituted NHCs. In many cases, no reaction occurs with NHCs lacking ortho-substituted aromatics. By careful competition studies, catalyst analogue synthesis, mechanistic investigations, and consideration of the elementary steps in NHC-catalyzed reactions of enals, we have determined that the effect of the N-mesityl group is to render the initial addition of the NHC to the aldehyde irreversible, thereby accelerating the formation of the Breslow intermediate. These studies rationalize the experimentally observed catalyst preference for all classes of NHC-catalyzed reactions of aldehydes and provide a roadmap for catalyst selection and design.

In the presence of a chiral azolium salt (10 mol %), enols and ynals undergo a highly enantioselective annulation reaction to form enantiomerically enriched dihydropyranones via an N-heterocyclic carbene catalyzed variant of the Claisen rearrangement. Unlike other azolium-catalyzed reactions, this process requires no added base to generate the putative NHC-catalyst, and our investigations demonstrate that the counterion of the azolium salt plays a key role in the formation of the catalytically active species. Detailed kinetic studies eliminate a potential 1,4-addition as the mechanistic pathway; the observed rate law and activation parameters are consistent with a Claisen rearrangement as the rate-limiting step. This catalytic system was applied to the synthesis of enantioenriched kojic acid derivatives, a reaction of demonstrated synthetic utility for which other methods for catalytic enantioselective Claisen rearrangements have not provided a satisfactory solution.

Catalytic reactions promoted by N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) have exploded in popularity since 2004 when several reports described new fundamental reactions that extended beyond the long-studied generation of acyl anion equivalents. These new NHC-catalyzed reactions allow chemists to generate unique reactive species from otherwise inert starting materials, all under simple, mild reaction conditions and with exceptional selectivities. In analogy to transition metal catalysis, the use of NHCs has introduced a new set of elementary steps that operate via discrete reactive species, including acyl anion, homoenolate, and enolate equivalents, usually generated by oxidation state reorganization ("redox neutral" reactions). Nearly all NHC-catalyzed reactions offer operationally simple reactions, proceed at room temperature without the need for stringent exclusion of air, and do not generate reaction byproducts. Variation of the catalyst or reaction conditions can profoundly influence reaction outcomes, and researchers can tune the desired selectivities through careful choice of NHC precursor and base. The catalytically generated homoenolate and enolate equivalents are nucleophilic species. In contrast, the catalytically generated acyl azolium and α,β-unsaturated acyl azoliums are electrophilic cationic species with unique and unprecedented chemistry. For example, when generated catalytically, these species transformed an α-functionalized aldehyde to an ester under redox neutral conditions without coupling reagents or waste. In addition to providing new approaches to catalytic esterifications, acyl azoliums offer unique reactivities that chemists can exploit for selective reactions. This Account focuses on the discovery and mechanistic investigation of the catalytic generation of acyl azoliums and α,β-unsaturated acyl azoliums. These chemical species are fascinating, and their catalytic generation is an important development. Studies of their unusual chemistry, however, date back to the intense investigation of thiamine-dependent enzymatic processes in the 1960s. Acyl azoliums are remarkably reactive in acylation chemistry and are unusually chemoselective. These two properties have led to a new wave of reactions such as redox esterification reaction (1) and the catalytic kinetic resolution of challenging substrates (i.e., 3). Our group and others have also developed methods to generate and exploit α,β-unsaturated acyl azoliums, which have facilitated new C-C bond-forming annulations, including a catalytic, enantioselective variant of the Claisen rearrangement (2). From essentially one class of catalysts, the N-mesityl derived triazolium salts, researchers can easily prepare highly enantioenriched dihydropyranones and dihydropyridinones. Although this field is now one of the most explored areas of enantioselective C-C bond forming reactions, many mechanistic details remained unsolved and in dispute. In this Account, we address the mechanistic inquiries about the characterization of the unsaturated acyl triazolium species...