Synergistic Bimetallic Catalysis for Carboboration of Unsaturated Hydrocarbons

Synergistic bimetallic catalysis has become a very efficient tool for the selective carboboration of unsaturated hydrocarbons. This synthetic approach is based on the use of a catalytically generated boron-substituted organocopper nucleophile in a cross-coupling reaction catalyzed by a second transition metal. This way, hydrocarbons can be used as pro-nucleophiles in this type of transformations thus rendering a clean and operationally simple alternative to the traditional cross-coupling methodologies. This review provides a summary of the developments on this topic and discusses both the synthetic utility and mechanisms of these reactions. 1 Introduction 2 Carboboration of Alkenes via Synergistic Catalysis 3 Carboboration of 1,3-Dienes via Synergistic Catalysis 4 Carboboration of Alkynes via Synergistic Catalysis 5 Conclusions