Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, January 20-24, 1986

The work presented here is a result of an extended collaboration with a number of coworkers and guests. Particularly, I would like to thank Dr. P. Burkhard and Dr. W. Strub for their careful work performed for their Ph. D. thesis and Dr. M. Heming for his brilliant ideas and his dedication. Very fruitful and stimulating were collaborations with our guests, i. e. with G. A. Brinkman and P. W. F. Louwrier from NIKHEF-K in Amsterdam, B. C. Webster, M. J. Ramos and D. McKenna from the University of Glasgow, M. C. R. Symons, D. Geeson and C. J. Rhodes from the University of Leicester, S. F. J. Cox and C. A. Scott from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, and R. De Renzi and M. Ricco from the University of Parma. Many invaluable discussions with friends and competitors in the field helped to address new viewpoints and to define new goals. I shall not forget my teacher and director of the radical chemistry group, Prof. H. Fischer, whom I wish to thank for his interest and active support and for the great liberty he allowed me for the planning and organization of the project. Last but not least, I thank my dear wife Hanny and our children Christian, Martin and Andrea who suffered, without complaint, daddy's absence for so many hours.

Free radicals constitute the most frequently used class of reaction intermediates in organic chemistry. This study describes the structure and reactivity of free radicals, and explores their role in both natural phenomena and in the design of new reaction pathways.

Radical Reactions in Aqueous Media provides a step-wise introduction, taking students from the basic principles of radical reactions through to their applications in industry and their role in biological and environmental processes."--Jacket.

As little as a decade ago, radicals were regarded as interesting reactive intermediates with little synthetic use. However, recent results show that radicals have an enormous potential for applications in stereoselective reactions - it's all a matter of knowing what method to use and how to apply it. Three world experts in the field have combined their expertise and present the concepts to understand and even to predict the course of stereoselective radical reactions. In addition, guidelines are established which will enable the readers to plan and carry out their own stereoselective syntheses with radicals. A comprehensive list of references provides an easy access to the primary literature. The Stereochemistry of Radical Reactions is a highly topical introduction to this burgeoning field of research. Both advanced students and researchers active in the field will welcome this book as a source of concepts and ideas.