Recent Advances of the Combination of Au/Acid Catalysis

Recently, homogeneous gold catalysis has attracted tremendous attention and has also been widely used in multistep synthesis. The current reaction methodology starts from the gold activation of unsaturated carbon bond and subsequent nucleophilic attack. The combination of a gold catalyst with another acid catalyst, including Bronsted acid and Lewis acid, is possible to bring two distinctive catalytic systems together and deliver unprecedented new reactions. More essentially, it avoids the purification of unstable intermediates and improves the step and atom economy. Here, the recent progress in the Au/Acid combined catalysis is reviewed, including the scope of reactions, mechanism and synthetic applications.