Organometallic compounds and transition-metal catalysis

The organometallic compounds of the main-group metals (lithium, magnesium, copper) are carbon nucleophiles that add to carbonyls and enones. Transition metals, in catalytic amounts, also make it possible to join fragments that would not react with each other, such as two aromatic rings.

This topic covers the elementary steps of metal catalysis (oxidative addition, transmetalation, insertion and reductive elimination), the cross-couplings that earned Heck, Negishi and Suzuki the 2010 Nobel Prize, and olefin metathesis, the subject of the 2005 Nobel Prize.