The focus of the work presented in this thesis is the development of iridium-catalysed asymmetric hydrogenation reactions.

The first part of this thesis covers the development of dynamic kinetic resolution in asymmetric hydrogenation of chiral, racemic secondary allylic alcohols, which are converted to chiral saturated alcohols with high dr and ee. In this study, a wide range of substrates was successfully hydrogenated to give good results, with up to 95:5 dr and 99% ee. Moreover, a number of different allylic alcohol derivatives were also investigated and found to undergo the DKR of hydrogenation with good results.

The second part of this thesis is directed towards the development of regioselective asymmetric mono-hydrogenation of 1,4- and 1,5-disubstituted 1,4-cyclohexadienes. Under optimized hydrogenation conditions, high yield of regioselective mono-hydrogenated products and excellent enantioselectivity were observed in most cases. The usefulness of the reaction was demonstrated in the preparation of important chiral α,β-unsaturated ketones in good yield and excellent ee of up to 96%. Our novel method provides a general route to this important class of compounds.

The third part concerns the development of asymmetric hydrogenation of β-hydroxy silanes. It was observed that under hydrogenation conditions, β-hydroxy silanes undergo Peterson olefination to form terminal olefins which are then hydrogenated using an Ir catalyst. A new class of Ir-N,P catalysts were prepared and provided high yield with excellent ee in up to 99%. In addition, the reaction was highly chemoselective and could be tuned to hydrogenate either an olefin or a β-hydroxy silane depending on the choice of catalyst and reaction conditions.

The final part describes the asymmetric hydrogenation of enamides. A variety of oxazolidinone-enamides were prepared and evaluated in this reaction. High yields, (up to 99%) and excellent ee, (up to 99%) were obtained.