Conjugate addition reactions

The conjugateadditionreaction is a fundamental process in organic chemistry. The reaction involves the addition of nucleophiles to acceptor substituted double and triple bonds and results in the formation of a new carbon-carbon, carbon-nitrogen, carbon-oxygen or carbon-sulfur bond. The reaction often leads to the generation of one, two or even three new stereogenic centres and so considerable effort has been made to develop catalytic asymmetric methods, particularly under the influence of an external chiral ligand or chiral catalyst. Indeed, over the past ten years there has been a plethora of such new methods, and this chapter adumbrates some of the major recent advances in this area. It also provides an overview of the arsenal of catalysts available to carry out this important class of synthetic reaction