Recent Advances in Zinc-Catalyzed Carbon-Heteroatom Bond Formation

Abstract

Zinc has been an overlooked metal in catalysis for many years. However, this situation has begun to change in the last two decades with a number of contributions demonstrating that zinc salts and complexes are able to catalyze transformations typically accomplished with catalysts based on precious transition metals. The development of such zinc-catalyzed methodologies is highly appealing because, in general, zinc catalysts are easily available, inexpensive and less toxic. This Review aims to present the most recent and relevant examples of the use of zinc catalysts in the formation of carbon-heteroatom bonds, which is a very important process in synthetic organic chemistry.