We discussed recent studies, within the framework of transport theories, on heavy ion reactions between charge asymmetric systems, from low up to Fermi energies. We concentrated on the analysis of ternary breakup events of dynamical origin occurring in semi-central reactions, where the formation of excited systems in various conditions of shape, excitation energy and spin is observed. At beam energies around 20 A Me V, we showed how this fragmentation mode emerges from the combined action of surface(neck) instabilities and angular momentum effects, leading to the observation of three aligned massive fragments in the exit channel. At Fermi energies, a transition towards a prompt emission of small fragments from the neck region with larger relative velocity with respect to projectile and target remnants is observed. We also focus on isospin sensitive observables, aiming at extracting information on the density dependence of the isovector part of the nuclear effective interaction and of the nuclear symmetry energy. We discussed recent studies, within the framework of transport theories, on heavy ion reactions between charge asymmetric systems, from low up to Fermi energies. We concentrated on the analysis of ternary breakup events of dynamical origin occurring in semi-central reactions, where the formation of excited systems in various conditions of shape, excitation energy and spin is observed. At beam energies around 20 A Me V, we showed how this fragmentation mode emerges from the combined action of surface (neck) instabilities and angular momentum effects, leading to the observation of three aligned massive fragments in the exit channel. At Fermi energies, a transition towards a prompt emission of small fragments from the neck region with larger relative velocity with respect to projectile and target remnants is observed. We also focus on isospin sensitive observables, aiming at extracting information on the density dependence of the isovector part of the nuclear effective interaction and of t he nuclear symmetry energy.