HOME-Chemistry: hydrazone as organometallic equivalent

The modern synthetic chemistry heavily relies on the use of stoichiometric organometallic reagents to react with various electrophiles. The dependence on stoichiometric quantities of metals and often organic halides as precursors, in turn both produces copious amounts of metal halide wastes as well as leads to concerns on future metal sustainability. Inspired by the classical Wolff-Kishner reduction, our lab has recently developed a general strategy of HOME-Chemistry , directly using naturally abundant alcohols/aldehydes and ketones as feedstocks with the releasing of innocuous water and nitrogen gas. These reactions include 1,2-carbonyl/imine addition, conjugate addition, carboxylation, olefination, cross-coupling arylation/allylation, alkylation, hydroalkylation and C-heteroatom formations. This article provides a brief summary on this chemistry.

Automated summary

Modern synthetic chemistry relies heavily on stoichiometric organometallic reagents to react with various electrophiles. However, the dependence on stoichiometric quantities of metals and organic halides leads to metal halide wastes and concerns on metal sustainability. Inspired by classical reduction reactions, our lab has developed a general strategy called HOME-Chemistry that directly uses abundant alcohols/aldehydes and ketones as feedstocks, releasing harmless water and nitrogen gas. This article provides a brief summary of this chemistry.