Chiral ferrocene ligands have been widely used in asymmetric catalysis. The advantages of using ferrocene as a scaffold for chiral ligands are described, particularly those regarding planar chirality, rigid bulkiness, and ease of derivatization. The role of planar chirality in 1,2- and 1,1'-disubstituted ferrocene systems is discussed. By using a bulky ferrocene fragment, novel ferrocene ligands were designed, and high enantioselectivity and regioselectivity were achieved in the allylic substitution reaction of monosubstituted allyl substrates. Using the tunable electronic properties of a diphosphine-oxazoline ferrocenyl ligand, the regioselectivity of the intermolecular asymmetric Heck reaction was also examined.

Highly enantioselective additions of arylboroxines to simple aryl ketones have been achieved for the first time with a Rh/(R,R,R,R)-WingPhos catalyst, thus providing a range of chiral diaryl alkyl carbinols with excellent ee values and yields. (R,R,R,R)-WingPhos has been proven to be crucial for the high reactivity and enantioselectivity. The method has enabled a new, concise, and enantioselective synthesis of the antidepressant drug escitalopram.

Sulfonyl compounds have attracted considerable interest due to their extensive applications in drug discovery. The access to the assembly of SO2-containing compounds via the oxygenation oxidative-state introduction of hypervalent sulfur...

The development of highly sensitive and selective detection techniques for the discrimination of relevant toxic benzenethiols and biologically active aliphatic thiols is of considerable importance in the fields of chemical, biological, and environmental sciences. In this article, we describe a new design of reaction-based fluorescent probe for discrimination of thiophenols over aliphaticthiols through intramolecular charge transfer pathways using N-butyl-4-amino-1,8-naphthalimide as a fluorophore, the strongly electron-withdrawing 2,4-dinitrobenzenesulfonamide group as a recognition unit, and 2,3-dihydroimidazo-[1,2-a] pyridine moiety as a linker. This rational design not only affords finely tunable spectroscopic properties by adding 2,3-dihydroimidazo-[1,2-a] pyridine moiety but also provides the chance to regulate the selectivity and sensitivity of the probe due to the formation of a new type of potentially reversible sulfonamide bond through 4-dimethylaminopyridine-like resonance. The developed probe displayed high off/on signal ratios, good selectivity, and sensitivity with a detection limit of 20 nM and a relative standard deviation of 1.7% for 11 replicate detections of 0.33 μM thiophenol and was successfully applied to the determination of thiophenols in water samples with quantitative recovery (from 94% to 97%) demonstrating its application prospect for thiophenols sensing in environmental and biological sciences.