A series of dendritic BINAP-Ru/chiral diamine catalysts were developed for asymmetric hydrogenation of various simple aryl ketones. The resulting catalytic system showed very attractive due to very good catalytic activity and enantioselectivity as well as facile catalyst recycling. In the case of 1-acetonaphthone and 2'-methyl-acetophenone, interesting e.e. value up to 95% was observed which are comparable to the enantioselectivity reported by Noyori under similar conditions and higher than that of the heterogeneous poly(BINAP)-Ru catalyst reported by Pu and co-workers [Tetrahedron Lett. 41 (2000) 1681]. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.