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Isodesmic Reactions in Catalysis – Only the Beginning?
Author(s) -
Bhawal Benjamin N.,
Morandi Bill
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
israel journal of chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.908
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1869-5868
pISSN - 0021-2148
DOI - 10.1002/ijch.201700116
Subject(s) - isodesmic reaction , chemistry , alkene , catalysis , redistribution (election) , organic reaction , organic chemistry , salt metathesis reaction , metathesis , nanotechnology , combinatorial chemistry , molecule , polymer , materials science , politics , political science , law , polymerization
In this perspective article, we discuss catalytic isodesmic reactions, a group of chemical reactions that proceed through the redistribution of chemical bonds – i. e. all bonds present in the starting materials are reformed in the products. These reactions are usually reversible and provide a complementary approach to the kinetically controlled strategies traditionally employed in chemical synthesis. To emphasize the power of these reactions across the molecular sciences, we present selected applications of these reactions in organic synthesis, chemical biology, biomass valorization, waste treatment, and materials science. We finally speculate that the development of novel catalytic isodesmic reactions beyond the “classics” (alkene/alkyne metathesis and transfer hydrogenation) holds great promise to solve crucial challenges in synthetic chemistry in the years to come.