Transition-Metal Catalysis for Hydrogenation, Metathesis, and C-C Bond Formation
This community develops catalysts based on transition metals to drive fundamental organic transformations, specifically hydrogenation, olefin metathesis, and coupling reactions. The work focuses on creating efficient, selective systems for synthesizing complex molecules, with a strong emphasis on controlling stereochemistry and reaction pathways.
The research centers on the design of metal-ligand complexes, particularly involving ruthenium, iridium, and rhodium, to facilitate transfer hydrogenation, asymmetric hydrogenation, and olefin metathesis. Recurring themes include the use of N-heterocyclic carbenes and pincer ligands to tune catalytic activity and selectivity. Applications span the production of primary alcohols from ketones, the polymerization of olefins, and the dehydrogenative coupling of organic substrates. The work also addresses the development of earth-abundant catalysts, such as manganese and cobalt complexes, to replace precious metals in these processes.
The community is most prominent in ruthenium research, accounting for 28.3% of all ruthenium papers, and in rhodium research, representing 26.7% of that element's literature. It also constitutes 22.4% of all iridium research.
The community comprises 28,894 papers, primarily published in Organometallics, the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and the Journal of Organometallic Chemistry. Recent work includes the de novo design of artificial enzymes for olefin metathesis, the application of graph neural networks to predict metal-ligand coordination, and the development of zeolite-anchored rhodium sites for ethylene hydroformylation.
Papers behind this description
- Regioselective hydroformylation of propene catalysed by rhodium-zeolite — Nature, 2024 — doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07342-y
- Hydroformylation of pyrolysis oils to aldehydes and alcohols from polyolefin waste — Science, 2023 — doi:10.1126/science.adh1853
- Bifunctional hydroformylation on heterogeneous Rh-WOx pair site catalysts — Nature, 2022 — doi:10.1038/s41586-022-05075-4
- Regioselective hydroformylation with subnanometre Rh clusters in MFI zeolite — Nature Catalysis, 2024 — doi:10.1038/s41929-024-01155-y
- Deconstruction of Polymers through Olefin Metathesis — Chemical Reviews, 2024 — doi:10.1021/acs.chemrev.3c00748
- Designed Nanomaterials for Electrocatalytic Organic Hydrogenation Using Water as the Hydrogen Source — Accounts of Chemical Research, 2023 — doi:10.1021/acs.accounts.3c00192
- Highly selective and robust single-atom catalyst Ru1/NC for reductive amination of aldehydes/ketones — Nature Communications, 2021 — doi:10.1038/s41467-021-23429-w
- De novo design and evolution of an artificial metathase for cytoplasmic olefin metathesis — Nature Catalysis, 2025 — doi:10.1038/s41929-025-01436-0
- Graph neural networks for predicting metal–ligand coordination of transition metal complexes — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2025 — doi:10.1073/pnas.2415658122
- One-dimensional rare-earth La-MOFs coordinated with Co-hexamethylenetetramine MOFs-derived highly efficient catalyst for cascade reaction of nitroarenes with alcohols — Journal of Rare Earths, 2025 — doi:10.1016/j.jre.2024.11.008
- Design and synthesis of tunable schiff base complexes from bis-(2-oxoindolin-3-ylidene)anthracene-9,10-dione: Integrated structural, biological, and molecular modeling insights — Computational Biology and Chemistry, 2025 — doi:10.1016/j.compbiolchem.2025.108682
- A novel ruthenium(VI) benzylidene carbene complex: Synthesis, crystal structure, hirshfeld surface, electrochemical behavior, and DFT insights — Journal of Molecular Structure, 2025 — doi:10.1016/j.molstruc.2025.144381
- Iridium(III)-catalysed ionic hydrogenation of pyridines to multisubstituted piperidines — Nature Chemistry, 2025 — doi:10.1038/s41557-025-02008-2