Ryōji Noyori

Ryōji Noyori is a Japanese chemist whose work on asymmetric catalysis, especially ruthenium-catalyzed hydrogenation, helped make the production of single-enantiomer compounds practical.

Asymmetric hydrogenation: A catalytic reaction that adds hydrogen to a prochiral molecule to produce one enantiomer preferentially. Noyori’s ruthenium catalysts made this reaction broadly useful for synthesizing chiral compounds.
2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to William S. Knowles, Ryōji Noyori, and K. Barry Sharpless for work on chirally catalyzed oxidation and hydrogenation reactions. Noyori shared the prize for developing catalytic asymmetric hydrogenation.
William S. Knowles: An American chemist who developed chiral rhodium catalysts for asymmetric hydrogenation and shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Knowles pioneered industrially useful asymmetric hydrogenation before Noyori’s ruthenium systems.
Chiral alcohol: An alcohol whose carbon bearing the hydroxyl group is attached to four different substituents, making it stereogenic. Asymmetric hydrogenation of ketones produces chiral alcohols used as synthetic intermediates.
Biocatalysis: The use of enzymes or whole cells to catalyze chemical transformations. Enzymes offer a biological alternative to the synthetic metal catalysts Noyori developed.
Noyori–Ikariya catalyst: A chiral ruthenium complex used for asymmetric transfer hydrogenation of ketones and related compounds. It embodies Noyori’s approach to efficient, selective hydrogen transfer.
Chiral drug synthesis: The preparation of pharmaceutical compounds in a specific stereochemical form. Noyori’s selective hydrogenation methods offer routes to biologically active single-enantiomer molecules.
K. Barry Sharpless: An American chemist whose research on catalytic asymmetric oxidation earned him the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Sharpless shared Noyori’s Nobel for a complementary branch of asymmetric catalysis.
Ketone reduction: A chemical transformation that converts a ketone into an alcohol by adding reducing equivalents. Noyori’s catalysts make ketone reduction highly selective for one alcohol enantiomer.
Rhodium-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation: Asymmetric hydrogenation using chiral rhodium complexes to favor formation of one product enantiomer. Knowles’s rhodium catalysts preceded Noyori’s ruthenium catalysts in practical asymmetric hydrogenation.

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