Homogeneous Gold Catalysis – A Hot Spot of Innovation

Abstract

Lower energy consumption, faster reactions and higher selectivities are some of the intrinsic properties of catalysis. These are important aspects of green chemistry and have made catalysis research one of the key technologies of the 21st century, a very important subject not only for chemists in research and production but also for the whole society. Over the last decade homogeneous gold catalysis has become one of the major innovative areas in catalysis research, continuously providing new catalysis reactions. We have witnessed an initial dominance of methodology development, followed by strong interests in mechanistic studies and catalyst development. In the recent past many new applications in synthesis have been developed, for both natural product synthesis and synthesis of compounds for material science. The catalyst structure is well defined and the manifold of analytical tools of molecular chemistry allows a safe structural assignment of the pre-catalysts, sometimes even of the active catalyst or intermediates of moderate reactivity. Computational chemistry allows a quite precise analysis of the electronic structure of the catalyst, intermediates of the reaction and otherwise inaccessible transition states. Such insights are much more difficult to obtain in the related field of heterogeneous catalysis. In this special issue a collection of publications from leading scientists is presented, covering current hot topics in the field: gold-catalyzed synthesis of heterocycles and polycycles, ligands for gold catalysis, cascade reactions, oxidative CC bond formation and dehydrative reactions.1 A. Stephen K. Hashmi Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Guest Editor