Selective direct heterocoupling of alkenes catalyzed by in situ generated ruthenium complexes.

We describe a ruthenium-based catalytic system that allows the codimerization of cyclic alkenes and Michael acceptors. High yields and excellent stereoselectivities toward the exo-(E) adducts are obtained on a wide range of substrates with various functional groups. In addition, running the reaction in protic media leads to the reduced product resulting from the tandem codimerization/reduction sequence.

Pd-catalyzed synthesis of aryl amines via oxidative aromatization of cyclic ketones and amines with molecular oxygen.

Pd-catalyzed intermolecular aerobic dehydrogenative aromatizations have been developed for the arylation of amines with nonaromatic ketones. Under optimized reaction conditions, primary and secondary amines are selectively arylated in good yields with cyclohexanones and 2-cyclohexen-1-ones in the presence of a Pd-catalyst under an atmosphere of molecular oxygen.

Green chemistry oriented organic synthesis in water.

The use of water as solvent features many benefits such as improving reactivities and selectivities, simplifying the workup procedures, enabling the recycling of the catalyst and allowing mild reaction conditions and protecting-group free synthesis in addition to being benign itself. In addition, exploring organic chemistry in water can lead to uncommon reactivities and selectivities complementing the organic chemists' synthetic toolbox in organic solvents. Studying chemistry in water also allows insight to be gained into Nature's way of chemical synthesis. However, using water as solvent is not always green. This tutorial review briefly discusses organic synthesis in water with a Green Chemistry perspective.

Ruthenium chloride as an efficient catalytic precursor for hydroarylation reactions via C-H bond activation.

A very simple and efficient catalytic system for the hydroarylation of olefins by aromatic ketones and Michael acceptors using simple and inexpensive ruthenium trichloride as a ruthenium source is described. These very mild conditions (dioxane at 80 degrees C) appeared to be highly compatible, tolerant, and selective toward various functional groups, and the ease of the protocol is highly convenient for synthetic purposes.

C-C bond formation via C-H bond activation using an in situ-generated ruthenium catalyst.

We report here our full results concerning the possibility of generating in situ from a stable and readily available ruthenium(II) source a highly active ruthenium catalyst for C-H bond activation. The versatility of this catalytic system has been demonstrated, as it offers the possibility of modifying the electronic and steric properties of the catalyst by fine-tuning of the ligands, allowing functionalization of various substrates. Aromatic ketones and imines could be easily functionalized by the reaction with either vinylsilanes or styrenes, depending on the electronic and steric nature of the ligand. Moreover, variable-temperature NMR experiments and the isolation of a ruthenium intermediate complex provided some insights into the generation of the active catalytic ruthenium species in this reaction.