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Rarely used strained molecules step up for organic synthesis

Energy released from molecules under strain can promote difficult chemical reactions. A practical method has been developed that uses an overlooked, highly strained compound to rapidly construct complex organic products.
  1. Fahima I. M. Idiris

    1. Fahima I. M. Idiris is at Process and Analytical Chemistry, Pharmaron UK Ltd, West Hill Innovation Park, Hoddesdon EN11 9FH, UK.

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  2. Christopher R. Jones

    1. Christopher R. Jones is in the Department of Chemistry, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK.

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Organic chemists continually strive to develop methods that enable the preparation of molecules that cannot currently be synthesized, or that allow synthesizable compounds to be made more efficiently. One approach to this is to find ways of promoting reactions that must overcome a large energy barrier to proceed. As with a child trying to scale a high wall to retrieve a ball from a neighbouring garden, there are different options for overcoming the barrier. One option is for the child to start from a point above ground level, such as a nearby tree, and then to drop down over the wall. In a chemical reaction, this equates to starting from a molecule that is much higher in energy than the desired products, and in a paper in Nature, Kelleghan et al.1 report an ingenious form of this strategy. They use the high levels of energy stored in a rarely used type of strained organic molecule, known as a 1,2,3-cyclohexatriene, to drive reactions that enable complex chemical synthesis.

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Nature 618, 683-685 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01935-9

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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