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Transition‐Metal‐Mediated Functionalization of White Phosphorus
Author(s) -
Hoidn Christian M.,
Scott Daniel J.,
Wolf Robert
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.202001854
Subject(s) - white phosphorus , surface modification , reactivity (psychology) , phosphorus , transition metal , combinatorial chemistry , chemistry , nanotechnology , materials science , catalysis , organic chemistry , medicine , alternative medicine , pathology
Recently there has been great interest in the reactivity of transition‐metal (TM) centers towards white phosphorus (P 4 ). This has ultimately been motivated by a desire to find TM‐mediated alternatives to the current industrial routes used to transform P 4 into myriad useful P‐containing products, which are typically indirect, wasteful, and highly hazardous. Such a TM‐mediated process can be divided into two steps: activation of P 4 to generate a polyphosphorus complex TM‐P n , and subsequent functionalization of this complex to release the desired phosphorus‐containing product. The former step has by now become well established, allowing the isolation of many different TM‐P n products. In contrast, productive functionalization of these complexes has proven extremely challenging and has been achieved only in a relative handful of cases. In this review we provide a comprehensive summary of successful TM‐P n functionalization reactions, where TM‐P n must be accessible by reaction of a TM precursor with P 4 . We hope that this will provide a useful resource for continuing efforts that are working towards this highly challenging goal of modern synthetic chemistry.