Lewis Base Catalysis Promoted Nucleophilic Substitutions – Recent Advances and Future Directions

Nucleophilic substitutions (S-N) account for the most essential and frequently applied chemical transformations. S-N-reactions allow forging C-C, C-O, C-N and C-Cl bonds, for example, from natural abundant starting materials such as alcohols and carboxylic acids. Products of S-N-reactions are ubiquitous and find inter alia applications as pharmaceuticals, plant protection agents and polymers. However, conventional S-N-type approaches are restricted frequently by the necessity of hazardous reagents and by-products, a poor waste-balance and therefore sustainability and high levels of costs, which especially impedes application in large scale synthesis. In order to provide solutions to these limitations, the development of novel catalytic methods for S-N-transformations has evolved into a flourishing and reviving area of research. The current review enables an overview of modern strategies for catalytic nucleophilic substitutions, presents as main topic the state-of-the-art with respect to S-N-methods that are promoted by Lewis bases and points out potential future directions for further innovations.