Iron-Catalyzed Carbonylation: Selective and Efficient Synthesis of Succinimides

摘要

The development of sustainable, efficient, and selective catalysis is a fundamental goal in chemistry. During the last decades, manifold transition metal catalyzed reactions have been uncovered which have significantly improved organic synthesis. Notably, most of the applications are based on complexes of precious metals such as palladium, rhodium, iridium, and ruthenium. The limited availability of these metals and their high price makes it highly desirable to search for more economical and environmentally friendly alternatives. Among the various biorelevant metals, iron is an especially attractive alternative compared to precious metals. Iron is the second most abundant metal in the earth's crust (4.7 wt%), it is cheap, benign, readily available, and ecological friendly. Obviously, numerous iron salts and complexes are commercially accessible on a large scale or are easy to synthesize. In contrast to man-made precious-metal catalysts, iron takes part in various biological systems as an essential key element, for example, in metalloproteins for the transport or metabolism of small molecules (oxygen, nitrogen, methane, etc.) and electron-transfer reactions.