Abdul Sadiq

• The asymmetric Michael addition of nucleophilic carbonyls (via enamine) to a diverse number of Michael acceptors produces an important carbon-carbon bond, producing a truly large number of products. Over the past decade an enormous number of organocatalysts have been developed for the asymmetric Michael addition. Challenging nucleophilic carbonyl additions, e.g. a-substituted carbonyls and some cyclic carbonyls, e.g. cyclopentanone, remain and require attention in terms of stereoselectivity, catalyst loading reaction time and yield. Here we have focused on designing new organocatalysts with primary amines to overcome the above outlined challenges. We have developed two types of organocatalysts: 1) primarytertiary diamine organocatalysts and 2) non-covalent bifunctional organocatalysts. Diamines were found to be better organocatalysts for the asymmetric Michael addition of cyclopentanone to various nitroolefins. While the assembled catalysts were found to be superior for the asymmetric Michael addition of a-substituted aldehydes addition to maleimides.