Development of safe, renewable, cheap and versatile solvents is a longstanding challenge in chemistry. We show here that vegetable oils and related systems can become prominent solvents for organic synthesis. Suzuki–Miyaura, Hiyama, Stille, Sonogashira and Heck cross-couplings proceed with quantitative yields in a range of vegetable oils, fish oil, butter and waxes used as solvents. Appropriate ...

The copper-NHC-catalyzed carboxylation of organoboranes with CO₂ was investigated using computational and experimental methods. The DFT and DLPNO-CCSD(T) results indicate that nonbenzylic substrates are converted via an inner-sphere carboxylation of an organocopper intermediate, whereas benzylic substrates may simultaneously proceed along both inner- and outer-sphere CO₂ insertion ...

Transition metal-catalyzed reactions invariably include steps where ligands associate or dissociate. In order to obtain reliable energies for such reactions, sufficiently large basis sets need to be employed. In this paper, we have used high-precision multiwavelet calculations to compute the metal–ligand association energies for 27 transition metal complexes with common ligands, such as H2, CO, ...

Although the catalytic carboxylation of unactivated alkyl electrophiles has reached remarkable levels of sophistication, the intermediacy of (phenanthroline)Ni(I)–alkyl species—complexes proposed in numerous Ni-catalyzed reductive cross-coupling reactions—has been subject to speculation. Herein we report the synthesis of such elusive (phenanthroline)Ni(I) species and their reactivity with CO₂, ...

What makes organometallic chemistry sustainable, or at least could make it more sustainable? A practical concept that allows us to set deliverable sustainability goals is Istvan Horváth’s sustainable definition of sustainability: Resources including energy should be used at a rate at which they are replaced naturally and the generation of waste cannot be faster than the rate of their remediation. ...

Asymmetric catalysis is essential for the synthesis of chiral compounds such as pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, fragrances, and flavors. For rational improvement of asymmetric reactions, detailed mechanistic insights are required. The usefulness of quantum mechanical (QM) studies for understanding the stereocontrol of asymmetric reactions was first demonstrated around 40 years ago, with impressive ...

Herein, we report the synthesis of highly reduced bipyridyl magnesium complexes and the first example of a stable organic magnesium electride supported by quantum mechanical computations and X-ray diffraction. These complexes serve as unconventional homogeneous reductants due to their high solubility, modular redox potentials, and formation of insoluble, non-coordinating byproducts. The applicability ...

The importance of relativistic effects in quantum chemistry is widely recognized, not only for heavier elements but throughout the periodic table. At the same time, relativistic effects are strongest in the nuclear region, where the description of electrons through a linear combination of atomic orbitals becomes more challenging. Furthermore, the choice of basis sets for heavier elements is ...

Metal carbenes can undergo a myriad of synthetic transformations. Sulfur ylides are potential safe precursors of metal carbenes. Herein, we report cascade reactions that involve carbenoids derived from sulfoxonium ylides for the efficient and regioselective synthesis of indoles and pyrroles. The tandem action of iridium and Brønsted acid catalysts enables rapid assembly of the heterocycles from ...

In transition metal-mediated carboxylation reactions, CO₂ inserts into a metal–nucleophile bond. At the carboxylation transition state (TS), CO₂ may interact with the metal (<i>inner</i>-sphere path) or may insert without being activated by the metal (<i>outer</i>-sphere path). Currently, there is no consensus as to which path prevails. In order to establish general predictions ...