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SPECTROSCOPY IN C–H ACTIVATION

Light up the dark paths

Nature Catalysis volume 1, pages 816–817 (2018)Cite this article

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Indirect methods are generally adopted to elucidate complicated mechanisms of transition metal catalysis. Now, a way to directly observe transient manganese species and monitor key reaction steps has been established by using time-resolved multiple-probe spectroscopy.

Transition metal catalysis has been one of the major forces behind the vigorous development of synthetic chemistry in the past thirty years. Transition metals control reaction processes by forming a variety of metal-containing catalytic species, conversions between which constitute the reaction catalytic cycles. Understanding these species and their conversions is of prime importance for designing and developing highly efficient catalysts with the expected control of chemo-, regio- and stereoselectivity. However, due to the transient nature of metal-containing catalytic species, the absence of suitable technical tools has meant that only indirect methods such as reaction kinetics, isotopic labelling and density functional theory (DFT) calculations are commonly used to probe these intermediates. The varied timescales of individual steps in the catalytic cycles add further difficulty for in situ observation. So, although the direct observation of short-lived metal species is highly desirable, it remains a formidable challenge.

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Fig. 1: Manganese-catalysed C–H functionalizations and mechanisms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Recognition and Function, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Congyang Wang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Congyang Wang

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  1. Congyang Wang
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Correspondence to Congyang Wang.

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Wang, C. Light up the dark paths. Nat Catal 1, 816–817 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-018-0180-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-018-0180-8

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