Question of the Week, 15.11.2010
This year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to a group of scientists that engaged in designing palladium-catalyzed reactions opening a plethora of new routes in organic synthesis. But palladium is expensive and also toxic. For more than two decades now chemists have been investigating the ability of iron to serve as a catalyst in cross coupling reactions and in some respect they have been very successful. But still iron remains less flexible and less reliable as a cross-coupling agent.
Read more:
Iron-Catalyzed Cross-Coupling Reactions
A. F?rstner, A. Leitner, M. Mendez and H. Krause, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2002, 124 (46), 13856-13863
Link: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja027190t
The Promise and Challenge of Iron-Catalyzed Cross-Coupling
B. Sherry and A. F?rstner, Acc. Chem. Res. 2008, 41 (11), 1500-1511
Link: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/ar800039x
Leonie Mueck