Introduction

In many respects, chiral compounds have been regarded as special entities within the fine chemical community. As we will see, the possession of chirality does not, in many respects, make the compound significantly more expensive to obtain. Methods for the preparation of optically active compounds have been known for more than 100 years (many based on biological processes). The basic chemistry to a substrate on which an asymmetric transformation is then performed can offer more challenges in terms of chemistry and cost optimization than the “exalted” asymmetric step.