Time：Friday 9:30 AM, September 25, 2015
Location：Conference room in Catalytic Building
Speaker：Professor Jianbo Wang
College of Chemistry, Peking University
Abstract: The metal-stabilized carbene species generated from diazo compounds demonstrate remarkably diverse reactivity and selectivity. Typical transformations of metal carbene include X-H insertions (X = C, N, O, S, etc), cyclopropanations, and ylide reactions. In the past decade, a new type of transition-metal-catalyzed reaction of diazo compounds has emerged, in which the diazo compounds have been explored as the cross-coupling partners in C-C single bond or C=C double bond formations. In the mechanism, the organometallic species is generated by oxidative addition or transmetallation, which reacts with diazo substrate to generate the metal carbene intermediate. Subsequent migratory insertion forms C-C bond. These transformations can be considered as the insertion of a metal carbene process into the catalytic cycle of the classic cross-coupling reaction. The key step in these coupling reactions is the carbene migratory insertion. This is comparable with the insertion of CO into metal-carbon bond, which is the fundamental step in transition metal-catalyzed carbonylations. The similar one-carbon unit insertion of carbene opens up new possibilities in the development of novel transition-metal-catalyzed C-C bond forming reactions. The carbene-based coupling has been proved to be general: various transition-metals including Pd, Cu, Rh, Ni, Co and Ir are effective catalysts; the scope of the reaction has also been extended to the substrates other than diazo compounds. This lecture will present the most recent advances in this area.
About the Speaker: Jianbo Wang is a Professor of Chemistry in the College of Chemistry, Peking University, China. He received his B.S. degree from Nanjing University of Science and Technology in 1983, and his Ph.D. from Hokkaido University (with Professor Hiroshi Suginome) in 1990. He was postdoctoral associate at the University of Geneva from 1990 to 1993 with Professor Charles W. Jefford, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1993 to 1995 with Professor Howard E. Zimmerman and Professor Leonard A. Fahien. He began his independent academic career at Peking University in 1995 as an associate professor, and was promoted to full professor in 1999. His research interests have been focused on catalytic metal carbene transformations. In the past five years, his group has extensively studied the combination of cross-coupling reaction and metal carbene reaction. A series of cross-coupling reactions that involve carbene process have been developed from these investigations. Another recent research topic in his group is the development of basic organic functional group transformations that are practically useful in organic synthesis. In particular, his group has established methods that convert aromatic amino group into boron group and trifluoromethyl group. His group has published over 200 research papers. He has received number of awards, which include National Outstanding Young Investigator Found by Natural Science Foundation of China (2002); Eli Lilly Research Excellence Award in China (ELSEA) (2006); Cheung Kong Scholarship (2006); and Chinese Chemical Society-BASF Award (2008). Professor Jianbo Wang is an associate editor of the Journal of Physical Organic Chemistry (Wiley) and Chinese Journal of Organic Chemistry. He is the editorial advisory board member of Organic Letters, Tetrahedron and Tetrahedron Letters.
Contact: Prof. Zhengkun Yu