Gold(III) Complexes: Ligand Design and Catalytic Properties

Abstract

Gold catalysis has become one of the fastest growing fields in organic chemistry, providing new transformations and offering excellent chemoselectivities at mild reaction conditions. So far, the main focus within Au(III) catalysis has been the development of widely applicable synthetic techniques and access to complex structures. The use of Au(III) salts, without any stabilizing ligands, remains dominating, although ligated Au(III) complexes have lately also been reported. For further progress of the field, an improved understanding of reactions mechanisms, of the factors governing catalyst reactivity, and of the influence of ligation are needed. This is expected to promote the synthesis of tailored compounds for applications in drug development and material sciences, for example, opening up new horizons for a wide variety of research fields that depend on the ability to design and produce complex molecules.

The development of novel Au(III) catalysts and the elucidation of their properties in Au-catalyzed organic transformations was the central aim of this thesis work. Functionalization of Au(III) using ligands that coordinate trough N-, O-, or P-donor atoms, followed by evaluation of their catalytic activity in selected model reactions have been performed. NMR spectroscopic, single-crystal X-ray crystallographic, and computational (DFT) methods were combined to gain understanding of the factors governing Au(III) catalysis. The results presented in this thesis provided new knowledge on the fundamentals of Au(III) chemistry, and a basis to the development of new, robust synthetic methodologies.