Solvothermal in situ metal/ligand reactions: A new bridge between coordination chemistry and organic synthetic chemistry

Several important solvothermal (including hydrothermal) in situ metal/ligand reactions and their mechanisms, including dehydrogenative carbon-carbon coupling, hydroxylation of aromatic rings, cycloaddition of organic nitriles with azide and ammonia, transformation of inorganic and organic sulfur, as well as the Cu-II to Cu-I reduction, are outlined in this Account. The current progress clearly demonstrates the important potential of such reactions in the crystal engineering of functional coordination compounds and one-pot synthesis of some unusual organic ligands that are inaccessible or not easily obtainable via conventional methods, thereby substantiating our expectation that a new bridge has been created between coordination chemistry and synthetic organic chemistry.