Chemical transformations, catalyzed by transition metals, play an important role in the field of catalysis. This white paper, ‘Recent Advances in Organic Chemistry – Metal Catalyzed Transformations’, looks at some of the latest research published in this area.
Over the last half century, there has been a great deal of groundbreaking research looking at the use of transition metals and their complexes in the synthesis of chemical compounds. These complexes are capable of delivering a number of benefits in organic synthesis and are used in many types of reactions, such as carbonylations, coupling reactions and asymmetric hydrogenations. Some of the latest work in this area revolves around the study of the excellent specificity, high turnover frequency and atom economy afforded by the use of these complexes and their use in the synthesis of natural products. The white paper takes a look at some of the latest work published by four research groups with interests in this area. Their work was selected not necessarily because of the work itself, but due to the interesting way in which the researchers pieced together information they could gather about the chemistry being studied and used that information to solve the problems at hand.
Some of the major challenges faced by researchers today include the need to accurately determine the start and end point of reactions as well as gaining sufficient information to fully understand, characterize and optimize chemical reactions. This, combined with the need to complete larger numbers of investigations with fewer resources and in a shorter time frame, is leading researchers to look for more innovative ways to gain the information they require to complete their work successfully.
A recurring theme in each of the papers reviewed was the use of ReactIR™ in situ spectroscopy to gather some of these clues. The use of ReactIR™ in situ spectroscopy has been increasingly used by researchers in synthetic organic chemistry due to its ability to deliver key pieces of information that enable researchers to clarify the mechanism, kinetics and pathway of many different types of reactions. The technique involves inserting a probe into the chemistry and collecting a number of infrared spectra throughout the course of the reaction. These spectra are then analyzed to see how the chemistry changes over time. The specificity of infrared spectroscopy means that a specific peak within a spectrum can correlate to an individual transformation in the reaction. Therefore, trending a peak over time in effect means the researchers can watch the making and breaking of a chemical bond.
The white paper shows how ReactIR™ in situ spectroscopy was used in each of the papers and the results it helped to deliver to the investigation.