Glucose to hexanes

Michael Gagne and co-workers at UNC used an iridium catalyst to reduce glucose to hexanes.

JACS paper

Photoredox catalysis

Yoshiaki Nishibayashi and co-workers at the University of Tokyo have reported in JACS on the use of an iridium photocatalyst to form alpha-aminoalkyl radicals.

What is photoredox catalysis anyway?  I have always been turned away from this kind of reaction because it always looked like people lit up a light bulb right next to their reactions to run these reactions, but I guess more and more people are starting to develop it.  People use a catalyst with a special ligand that allows it to undergo a metal to ligand charge transfer in the presence of low energy visible light.  The excited catalyst accepts an electron from a donor source (such as Hunig’s base).  This may be the reaction of 2012.

JACS paper

Fluorination of trichloroacetimidates

Hien Nguyen and co-workers from the University of Illinois have reported in JACS on a fluorination reaction using iridium.  This substrate is a trichloroacetimidate that is usually found as a substrate in the Overman rearrangement.

JACS paper

Ir cascade

Shu-Li You and co-workers from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry have reported in JACS on an iridium catalyzed coupling between amino-styrenes and allylic carbonates.

JACS paper

Reaction after another

Corey Stephenson and colleague at Boston University have reported in Organic Letters on an iridium catalyzed tandem reaction using visible light – the reaction forms a divinyl cyclopropane intermediate that undergoes a Cope rearrangement.

OL paper

Allylic alcohol to alpha-fluoroketone

Belen Martin Matute and co-workers at Stockholm University have reported in Synthesis on the transformation from an allylic alcohol to an alpha-fluoroketone using an iridium catalyst and Selectfluor as the fluorinating agent.

Synthesis paper

Ir-catalyzed cascade

Xingwei Li and co-workers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have reported on the formation of azomethine ylides using nitron alkynes.

ACIEE paper

Iridium catalyzed displacement

Gunter Helmchen and co-workers at Universitat Heidelberg have reported in Organic Letters on an iridium catalyzed allylic amination.

OL paper

Iridium Catalyzed Spirocyclization

Shu-Li You and co-workers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have reported in ACIEE on an iridium catalyzed spirocyclization.

ACIEE paper

Pyrrole or Furan leads to Nazarov or Hydride Shift

Richard Eisenberg, Alison Frontier and co-workers have reported in JACS on some transformation of a divinyl ketone, which undergoes either a Nazarov cyclization or a 1,2-hydride shift followed by a Friedel Crafts depending on whether the substituent is a pyrrole or a furan, respectively.

 

JACS paper