Kinetic resolution is one of the important synthetic methods to produce optically pure compounds. While a great progress was achieved in the domain of enzymatic kinetic resolution during the past years, non-enzymatic kinetic resolution is becoming another current hot area, which mainly refers to enanti-oselective acylation, oxidation, reduction, ring-opening, ring-closing, substitution and addition, etc. Recent advances in this field are briefly reviewed.

Key words: non-enzymatic catalysis, acylation, oxidation and reduction, ring opening and closing, kinetic resolution