19^th European Organic Chemistry Congress

Biography

Biography: Liang-An Chen

Abstract

Transition metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions involving organometallic reagents have emerged as a practical technical for intruding saturated carbon skeleton into organic molecules. However, the cross-coupling often suffered from the use of preprepared organometallic reagents with additional tedious synthetic steps, which are often sensitive to water and air, thus requiring exceptional caution for preservation. Stoichiometric organometallic reagents are often required for the cross-coupling reaction, thus resulting in poor atom economy. To the best of our knowledge, most coupling reactions employed C(sp2)- or C(sp)-metal reagents. By contrast, the method for accessing alkyl metal species (C(sp3)-M) is still a significant challenge; furthermore, they are prone to undergo β-H elimination or homolytic cleavage. Therefore, harnessing C(sp3)-M for transition metal-catalyzed coupling reaction represents a daunting challenge. Herein, we will report our recent contribution to transition-metal catalyzed cross-coupling reactions using in situ generated catalytic C(sp3)-M as a key intermediate, featuring high step- and atom-economy.