Reactions carried out with substoichiometric quantities of organic molecules as catalysts have received much attention over the past decade. This review highlights progress in 2011 towards highly enantioselective organocatalytic systems and the natural product/biologically active compounds that can be prepared using these types of processes.
This report highlights mechanistic work pertaining to polar reactions published in 2011. A range of topics is covered, spanning many different fields in chemistry, and as is often the case with much mechanistic work, the specific details of the work may span a number of the headings used to divide up this review. As such these headings should be used as guidelines. Areas such as supramolecular chemistry, biological systems and model systems, and solvent interactions are all featured.
Visible light photoredox catalysis is gradually replacing traditional radical reagents for the initiation and propagation of radical reactions in organic synthesis. This year has seen this methodology employed to generate high-energy aryl radicals and N-centred radicals. Photoredox catalysis played a pivotal role in the synthesis of (-)- aplyviolene, demonstrating the potential of this methodology. Another of this year's highlights was the remarkably simple asymmetric synthesis of pyrrolidines developed by MacMillan.
