tert-Butoxy-bis(dimethylamino)methane CAS:5815-08-7(Bredereck's reagent) is a useful reagent for α-methylation, α-methylenation, and α-amination of several carbonyl systems or compounds with an active CH group.

The 2,2'-bipyridine ligand has been extensively used as a metal chelating ligand due to its robust redox stability and ease of functionalization. In contrast to other ligands, such as catechol, which is dianionic, and derivatives of the acetylacetonate ion, which are monoanionic, 2,2'-bipyridine is a neutral ligand. It thus forms charged complexes with metal cations, and this property has been exploited in the design and synthesis of metal-bipyridine complexes.
Ligands containing two or more 2,2'-bipyridine units can in principle be used as bridges to interconnect metal centers in a well-defined spatial arrangement. The uses of such ligands as precursors for helical assembly, chiral molecular recognition, luminescent devices, and other applications in photonics and optoelectronics and electrochemistry have been studying extensively.

Chiral C2-symmetric vicinal diamines have emerged as powerful tools for the synthesis of enantiomerically pure compounds and are now commonly used as chiral auxiliaries or ligands for a wide array of asymmetric chemical transformations, with efficiencies comparable to those obtained with the closely related 1,2-diols. (1S,2S)- 1,2-Diaminocyclohexane (also named (IS,2S)-1,2-cyclohexanediamine), together with its (1R, 2R) enantiomer, allows excellent levels of asymmetric induction in many reactions, for which it has become the ligand of choice. Its applications in asymmetric synthesis and catalysis often involves the preparation of various N,N'-substituted derivatives.

Chirality is a geometric property of some molecules and ions. A chiral molecule/ion is non-superimposable on its mirror image. The presence of an asymmetric carbon center is one of several structural features that induce chirality in organic and inorganic molecules. The term chirality is derived from the Greek word for hand.