The Development of Novel N-Heterocyclic Carbenes and Tools for Assessing Structural Variation Effects Upon Catalyst Reactivity

Alberto Muñoz

N-Heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) are an important class of compounds responsible for a wide variety of chemical transformations. NHCs may be used as organocatalysts that permit non-traditional carbon carbon bond formations due to their renowned ability to invert the electrophilic character of aldehyde carbonyl groups, a concept otherwise known as polarity reversal or umpolung reactivity. Despite their ubiquity with respect to accessing the umpolung of aldehydes, fundamental studies of these reactive species are still rather limited and narrow in scope. As a result, clarifying and solving problems relevant to umpolung-themed asymmetric catalysis becomes quite challenging. In this regard, our work has been focused on a three-pronged approach towards providing a more unified understanding of these complex catalytic systems. First, we describe the synthesis of unprecedented...