Current Research and Development of Carbon–Hydrogen (C–H) Activations in Catalyzing Organic Syntheses

To generate series of useful compounds from hydrocarbons, various reactions which are able to satisfy these requests such as addition reactions to carbon/carbon multiple bonds, nucleophilic ring-opening reactions, carbonyl chemistry of the “non-aldol” type, cycloaddition reactions and so on have been studied in-depth. And in general, the preactivation of coupling synthons is always required for such cross-coupling methodologies. However, some existing downsides such as complicated processes and low efficiencies have kept the costs of the classical cross-coupling reactions very high. Due to its advantages such as higher yields of the desired product, relatively fewer byproducts and higher functional-group tolerance over the classical cross-coupling reactions, direct C-H functionalization is thought to be one of the most atom-economical synthetic processes. To develop better, faster, cheaper ways for converting the highly abundant hydrocarbons to value-added chemicals, carbon–hydrogen (C–H) activation is becoming one of the most powerful synthetic tools. As time goes on, C-H activation will find its wider application in a variety of catalytic processes in the pharmaceutical industry, materials science and other industries.