The ability to efficiently synthesize enantiomerically enriched materials is of key importance to the pharmaceutical, flavor and fragrance, animal health, agrochemicals, and functional materials industries [1]. An enantiomeric catalytic approach potentially offers a cost-effective and environmentally responsible solution, and the assessment of chiral technologies applied to date shows enantioselective hydrogenation to be one of the most industrially applicable [2]. This is not least due to the ability to systematically modify chiral ligands, within an appropriate catalyst system, to obtain the desired reactivity and selectivity. With respect to this, phosphorus(III)-based ligands have proven to be the most effective.Amongst the hundreds of chiral phosphorus-based ligands developed since the seminal studies of Knowles and Horner [3], only a select few ligand families have had a revolutionary impact on the field. The highly modular chiral C 2 -symmetric phospholane ligands (DuPhos TM and BPE), developed by Burk and coworkers at DuPont, are one such example. As a result, much effort has been directed towards building on this breakthrough discovery and extending both the design and application of this ligand class.In this chapter, we review the growing family of phospholane-based chiral ligands, and specifically examine their applications in the field of enantioselective hydrogenation. In general, this ligand class has found its broadest applicability in the reduction of prochiral olefins and, to a significantly lesser extent, ketones and imines; this is reflected in the composition of the chapter. Several analogous phosphacycle systems have also been included, where appropriate.Whilst trying to be comprehensive, we have also intended to introduce a strong applied flavor to this summary. In the industrial case, catalyst performance is critically judged on overall efficiency, namely catalyst productivity and activity as well as enantioselectivity. As a result, turnover numbers (TONs) and turnover frequencies (TOFs) have been included or calculated whenever possible and meaningful.
773The Handbook of Homogeneous Hydrogenation. Edited by J. G. de Vries and C. J. Elsevier