Towards the synthesis of chiral dinuclear gold(I)complexes to act as catalysts in asymmetric hydrogenation of alfa, beta-unsaturated carboxylic acids

Abstract: Gold is a transition metal that can be use as catalyst in a various reactions, when coordinated to ligands. In this study two dinuclear gold(I) complexes bearing chiral ligands have been synthesized and tested as catalyst for asymmetric hydrogenation of α,β-unsaturated carboxylic acids. Asymmetric synthesis is also known as enantioselective synthesis and is a very important synthesis method in drug manufacturing because of many reasons where economy is one of them. The catalysts showed good enantioselectivity and high conversion but the drawback was the poor reproducibility of the catalyst.