Asymmetric nucleophilic additions to acceptors and their analogues catalyzed by chiral copper and manganese complexes

This thesis aimed at the development of sustainable catalytic asymmetric methods for synthesis of chiral nitrogen containing scaffolds. In particular we focus on conjugate addition/dearomatisation reactions between Grignard reagents and nitrogen containing acceptors such as quinolines, indoles, and anilines, promoted by chiral copper complexes and Lewis acid. These chiral copper complexes, despite making use of readily available copper source still require use of chiral phosphine ligands that require multistep stoichiometric synthesis and the lack of efficient catalytic methods for their synthesis still persists. Therefore, the final stop of this PhD journey was the development of sustainable catalytic methods for synthesis of chiral phosphine ligands. This was achieved by using earth-abundant Mn(I)-complexes as chiral catalysts.