Transition Metal Chemistry and Optical Activity — Werner-Type Complexes, Organometallic Compounds, Enantioselective Catalysis

Abstract

Preparative transition metal chemistry was already well established in the last century. Thus, cis-PtCl₂ (NH₃)₂, today worldwide the most powerful drug in the chemotherapy of human cancers, was discovered in 1844 [1]. The existence and separation of isomers, mainly cis/trans isomers in square planar or octahedral complexes, was the basis for Alfred Werner’s theory of coordination, acknowledged by the Nobel Prize 1913. Optical activity in transition metal chemistry came into play in 1911, when Alfred Werner resolved the octahedral complex [Co(en)₂(NH₃)Cl]²⁺ (Scheme 8.1) using bromocamphorsulfonate as the counterion [2].