Coordination catalysis - Part 1

Coordination catalysis includes catalytic reactions involving soluble transition metal complexes, capable of coordinatively activating reagents and substrates.

The term coordination catalysis is preferred to homogeneous catalysis, which is also used for acid and base catalysis.

In the first part of this article, before turning to catalytic reactions, we'll take a look at transition metal coordination complexes and the specific reactions to which they give rise.

Many books deal with the chemistry of coordination complexes. These include treatises by Cotton and Wilkinson, and recently by Astruc [1][2] .

Following this overview of coordination chemistry, we present catalytic reactions in which the substrate functionality is not altered, including positional isomerization of the alkene double bond, hydrogenation, dimerization, oligomerization, polymerization, metathesis and carbon-carbon coupling reactions.

In the second part , we deal with catalytic reactions in which the substrate functionality is modified.