Recent Advances and Perspectives in the Synthesis of Heterocycles via Zinc Catalysis

Among the various metal catalysts, zinc salts have enormous potential due to their availability, low toxicity, eco-friendliness and inexpensive nature. Biologically zinc is an essential element in our daily lives and it possesses a wide range of applications in pharmaceutical as well as material sciences. In synthetic organic chemistry, the main role of zinc salts is as a Lewis acid catalyst. The importance of the synthesis of heterocycles is attested by the vast number of applications of these compounds in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The environmentally benign nature of zinc, its abundance and the Lewis acid character of most of its compounds make it a suitable catalyst for heterocycle synthesis. This is the first review exclusively on zinc-catalyzed heterocycle synthesis and deals with the recent applications, especially using tandem/domino or one-pot reaction strategies and covers the literature from 2008 to 2018.