Detail:

Abstract:
　　"Element Strategy Initiative", a national funding scheme started in 2007 in Japan, originates from a 2004 proposal from the scientific community in the field of chemistry and materials science [1]. I have long worked on "base metal" chemistry, copper in particular, together with many students including Dr. Ying Zhang (who worked with Prof. Yutaka Matsuo who will join USTC this spring) and Songlin Zhang (now in Jiangnan University, Wuxi) from Prof. Qingxiong Guo of USTC. We started to focus on iron catalysis in the late 1990s with Dr. Masaharu Nakamura, Kyoto Professor now, and published our first paper on an iron-catalyzed asymmetric carbometallation reaction – the first example of organoiron catalyzed asymmetric synthesis [2]. Working on iron-catalyzed substitution reactions for sometime [3], we made a serendipitous discovery of iron-catalyzed C–H bond functionalization in 2006, which we spent two years to develop into a reliable synthetic methodology with Dr. Naohiko Yoshikai now in Nanyang Technological University [4]. This lecture will discuss on the recent advance in the field working together with Dr. Laurean Ilies such as the one shown below for an iron-catalyzed Csp2–H functionalization with an aluminum reagent. Dr. Rui Shang, a JSPS fellow and Ms. Yi Zhou from Prof. Yao Fu, are working hard to achieve a paradigm change in this field of research [5].

[1] Managing the Scarcity of Chemical Elements, E. Nakamura, K. Sato, Nat. Mater., 10, 158-161 (2011).
[2] Iron-Catalyzed Olefin Carbometalation, M. Nakamura, A. Hirai, and E. Nakamura, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 122, 978-979 (2000)
[3] E. Nakamura, N. Yoshikai, J. Org. Chem., 75, 6061-6067 (2010).
[4] Iron-Catalyzed Direct Arylation through Directed C-H Bond Activation, J. Norinder, A. Matsumoto, N. Yoshikai, and E. Nakamura, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 130, 5858-5859 (2008).
[5] Iron-Catalyzed Directed C(sp2)-H and C(sp3)-H Functionalization with Trimethylaluminum, R. Shang, L. Ilies, E. Nakamura, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 137, 7660-7663 (2015).