Strongly acidic Brønsted acids as efficient catalysts in asymmetric synthesis

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In recent years small organic molecules have been widely used as catalyst for enantioselective transfonmations. Inspired by nature most these organocatalysts have been considered as alternatives to enzymes with the advantage of being less expensive, more stable, readily available and showing a broader substrate scope as compared to their biological counterparts. The field of asymmetric organocatalysis has grown rapidly and can now be subdivided by the mechanism of activation into several reaction types, including enamine, iminium, carbene, hydrogen bonding and Brensted acid catalysis. Compared to the other activation mechanisms asymmetric Brønsted acid catalysis is still in its infancy. Therefore, we plan to synthesize new strongly acidic Brönsted acids for the development of new highly enantioselective transformations. A special focus will be directed to carbonyl activations and we hope to enable near to perfect reaction conditions in these reactions. This will not only help us to grow our understanding of the mechanisms at play, but would ideally bring us in the position of targeted catalyst and reaction design.