Recent Advances and Advisable Applications of Bond Energetics in Organic Chemistry

Most organic transformation involves cleavage and formation of various covalent bonds, and naturally, can be regarded as a process of bond reorganization, which should be intrinsically related to bond energies (e.g., pKa, BDE, etc.). However, in many cases such as in C–H bond activation/functionalization, direct correspondence between the bond energy and reaction rate or other relevant properties is only occasionally observed when applying the bond data by simple rules like the Linear Free-Energy Relationships (LFERs) in handling intricate reaction systems. In this Perspective, we present examples to argue that the above-mentioned situation is not a consequence of a diminishing role of the bond energetics in research, but most likely, comes from an improper use of energetic strategy, or simply due to a faulty selection of the data from unsuitable sources. Some advisable applications of bond energies in unscrambling the problems in modern day chemistry are exemplified through representative recent advances...