Introduction

Abstract Oxidation is an electron transfer reaction from a substrate to a reagent which is called as oxidant. Even if limited to organic reactions, a wide variety of reactions, such as hydroxylation, epoxidation, dihydroxylation, aziridination, hydroxyamination, halogenation, etc., are classified into oxidation reactions. As the names of each reaction indicate, these reactions are related to the functionalization of the substrates. For example, hydroxylation of alkanes produces alcohols and epoxidation and dihydroxylation of alkenes affords epoxides and dials, respectively. In addition to this, most oxidation reactions endow oxidized carbon(s) with chirality (Eqs 1—3). Newly introduced oxygen functionalities can be transformed stereospecifically into various other useful functional groups. Thus, stereocontrolled oxidation reactions are valuable and potent tools for the synthesis of optically active and functionalized compounds. For these reasons, much effort has long been devoted to the study of asymmetric oxidation. This book starts with a brief review of the development of stereocontrol in oxidation reactions and the following chapters are devoted to the practical approaches to various asymmetric oxidation reactions.