Palladium-diamine complexes catalyzed kinetic resolution of axially chiral 2,2'-dihydroxy-1,1'-biaryls by alcoholysis of vinyl ethers. The reaction proceeded with high selectivity for various kinds of biaryls. This process is applicable to not only binaphthols but also biphenols, which have been considered to be difficult for the enantioselective synthesis by known catalytic methods.

Novel rhodium(I) complexes with N-heterocyclic carbenes bearing a 2,3,4,5-tetraphenylphenyl and its higher dendritic frameworks were synthesized and the complexes were used as catalysts in rhodium-catalyzed hydrosilylation of alpha,beta-unsaturated ketones to show high 1,4-adduct selectivity.

Kinetic resolution of 4-alkyl-2-aryl-5-oxo-4,5-dihydrooxazole-4-carboxylic acid esters (azlactones 1) were achieved by copper-DTBM-SEGPHOS catalyzed alcoholysis reaction with good selectivity (12 examples). Variation of ee of unreacted substrates 1 and products 2 with conversion was found to follow the theoretical line of zeroth-order kinetic resolution, for which the selectivity profiles and graphical analysis were presented for the first time. The efficiency of resolution in zeroth-order reaction is higher than first-order reaction. For example, the reaction with 1a afforded (S)-1a (99% ee) and (R)-2a (74% ee) at 57% conversion, where the k(rel) values were calculated to be 6.7 as zeroth-order kinetic resolution and 37 as first-order kinetic resolution.