This thesis presents the use of organic carbonates (especially propylene carbonate) as alternative solvents for asymmetric catalysis. In the last decades the usefulness of these solvents for homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis has been presented in several publications.
In this thesis homogeneous palladium-, rhodium- and iridium-catalyzed reactions were investigated in organic carbonates. A major part was the use of the rhodiumcatalyzed hydrogenation to obtain chiral products with high stereoselectivities. Moreover, it could be shown, that organic carbonates can be used to afford an efficient catalyst recycling as well as to obtain pure products via product distillation out of the reaction media.
Furthermore this thesis includes results on the use of organic carbonates as solvents for palladium catalyzed copper-free Sonogashira reaction as well as for asymmetric allylic substitutions.