Heterogeneous catalysis in organic synthesis

For the synthetic chemist the most common heterogeneously catalyzed reactions are the catalytic hydrogénations of organic functional groups. There are, however, a number of other synthetically useful reactions which can be promoted by heterogeneous catalysts. We have been studying some of these over the past several years in order to expand our understanding of such reactions and to make them more attractive to the synthetic chemist. These reactions along with some data on enantioselective heterogeneous catalysis, are discussed in order to illustrate the variety of synthetically useful reactions which can be run over heterogeneous catalysts and how the catalysts can be modified to enhance reaction selectivity.