A series of imidazolidinone and proline derivatives have been synthesised and tested with regard to their suitability for the chiral modification of platinum used for the asymmetric hydrogenation of activated ketones. Hydrogenations of ketopantolactone (KPL), methyl benzoylformate (MBF) and trifluoroacetophenone (TFAP) performed at low hydrogen pressures (1 and lobar) were selected as test reactions. With some of these synthethic modifiers, encouraging levels of enantioselectivity were achieved (up to 73.5:26.5 e.r.) without optimisation of the reaction conditions. Moreover, performance enhancement of L-proline derived-modifiers, as a consequence of molecular editing with fluorine, was found to be significant (OH -> F, Delta ee up to 23%) contributing to the growing interest in modulating catalyst performance by fluorine introduction. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.