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C–H activation

Following directions

Nature Chemistry volume 7, pages 686–687 (2015)Cite this article

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Controlling the site-selectivity of C–H activation reactions is a major obstacle for the development of synthetically useful methodology. Now, meta-C–H functionalizations of arenes have been achieved by exploiting weak secondary interactions of a metal-coordinating ligand with the substrate.

Substituted arenes are key structural motifs in numerous compounds of relevance to medicinal chemistry, crop protection and material sciences. The synthesis of decorated arenes has evolved from traditional electrophilic or radical substitutions, such as the Friedel–Crafts or Minisci reactions. Despite their continued practical importance, controlling the site-selectivity in these traditional transformations remains challenging. Although the development of palladium-catalysed cross-coupling chemistry has done much to address the strong demand for selectively assembled arenes, these transformations usually require laborious multistep substrate preparations, thereby considerably reducing the overall efficiency of a synthesis. As an environmentally benign, economically superior alternative, metal-catalysed C-H functionalizations have emerged as increasingly viable tools for step-economical organic syntheses.

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Figure 1: Strategies for meta-selective C–H functionalization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lutz Ackermann and Jie Li are at the Institut für Organische und Biomolekulare Chemie, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Tammannstr. 2, 37077 Göttingen, Germany,

    Lutz Ackermann & Jie Li

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  1. Lutz Ackermann
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  2. Jie Li
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Correspondence to Lutz Ackermann.

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Ackermann, L., Li, J. Following directions. Nature Chem 7, 686–687 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2334

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