Palladium Catalysed Coupling Reactions

This chapter presents the leading advances in the specific areas of palladium catalyzed enantioselective allylic substitution, cross-coupling, and Heck reactions. The palladium catalyzed nucleophilic substitution of allylic compounds is an established, efficient and reliable process, and has become an important tool for the synthetic organic chemist. An interesting series of enantiopore monodentate phoshine ligands, which have carboxylic acid functionality and a cyclobutane or cyclopentane backbone are prepared. The use of phoshine-oxazoline ligands in enantioselective allylic substitution and other reactions is also reviewed. The palladium catalyzed cross-coupling process is established as a practical and efficient method of forming carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds utilizing a wide range of coupling partners. Heck reactions provide the common description of a palladium catalyzed coupling of alkenes with aryl or vinyl halides or triflates . The wide utility of the intermolecular Heck reaction in the synthesis of natural products stimulated the search for efficient enantioselective catalysts.