Synthetic chemistry can be rightfully considered as one of the pillars of modern society. This discipline provides many valuable resources that allow us to produce enough fertilizers to feed a growing population and to create materials which are indispensable for society’s development, for instance. Organic synthesis has made a tremendous impact on healthcare through the design of drugs to treat almost any disease, resulting in a constant increase in life expectancy. All these advances were made possible by the curiosity of generations of scientists who were constantly looking for new solutions for assembling functional molecules. Since the discovery of the principal possibility of the synthesis of organic molecules by Friedrich Wöhler, organic synthesis has reached an extraordinary level of sophistication.
Pioneered by Edward Frankland in 1849, the main group organometallic reagents drastically elevated their role in synthetic chemistry over the past 17 decades and solidified their position among the most versatile and widely used reagents in organic synthesis. The reason of such prosperity is a low cost, the simplicity of handling (operations at temperatures of liquid ammonia or dry ice under argon atmosphere are a common practice nowadays) and generally clean, selective and high yielding reactivity. Solvents used in organometallic synthesis are typically mixtures of low-boiling alkanes and ethers, which can be removed in an energy-efficient way by distillation. Recent advances in the field allowed the use of nonconventional media, such as deep eutectic solvents and gels, as well as the application of flow processes. The tunable reactivity of organometallics is arguably the most fascinating feature of these reagents. The implementation of additives, such as ligands or metal-containing species, or the simple act of changing the solvent allows the enhancement of the reaction rate, control regioselectivity and open up new reaction pathways. Finally various non-covalent interactions dramatically influence the behavior of organometallic species, allowing the control and enhancement of their reactivity.
The main goal of this course is to familiarize students with chemistry of the most used main group organometallics: the phenomena of organometallic bonding; structure in solid state, gas phase and solution; general methods of organometallics generation and their practical use for the organic synthesis.
