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This article is part of the

Organocatalysis
web themed issue

Guest editors: Professors Keiji Maruoka, Hisashi

Yamamoto, Liu-Zhu Gong and Benjamin List

All articles in this issue will be gathered together online at

www.rsc.org/organocatalysis
 ChemComm Dynamic Article Links

Cite this: Chem. Commun., 2012, 48, 10703

www.rsc.org/chemcomm EDITORIAL

Organocatalysis: a web collection

Keiji Maruoka,a Benjamin List,b Hisashi Yamamotoc and Liu-Zhu Gongd
DOI: 10.1039/c2cc90327j
Published on 28 September 2012. Downloaded on 09/04/2017 16:20:05.

The exploitation of new catalysts and new
organic transformations in an environ-
mentally benign manner has became
crucially important in recent years for the
construction of new and useful organic
structures from versatile starting materials.
In this context, organocatalysis has
a
Department of Chemistry, Graduate School
of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto,
606-8502, Japan.
E-mail: maruoka@kuchem.kyoto-u.ac.jp;
Tel: +81-75-753-4041
b
Max-Planck-Institut fur Kohlenforschung,
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz 1, D-45470 Mulheim
an der Ruhr, Germany.
E-mail: list@mpi-muelheim.mpg.de;
Tel: +49-208-306-2411
c
Department of Chemistry, The University of
Chicago, 5735 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago,
IL 60637. E-mail: yamamoto@uchicago.edu;
Tel: 773-702-5059
d
Hefei National Laboratory for Physical
Sciences at the Microscale, Department of
Chemistry, University of Science and
Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026,
P. R. China. E-mail: gonglz@ustc.edu.cn;
Tel: +86-(0)551-3600671
recently emerged as a powerful synthetic
paradigm in order to ll a gap between
metal- and enzyme-catalysis, thereby provid-
ing practical alternatives or complementary
technologies to the more traditional tran-
sition metal-catalyzed systems. Organo-
catalysis is an attractive method to
synthesize complex organic molecules: it
is operationally simple, has low associated
toxicity and organocatalysts are simple to
handle and store. In addition, a wide
variety of organocatalysts are now com-
mercially available, which will further
stimulate the wide application of such
organocatalysts for selective organic
transformations in a broad manner. Indeed,
organocatalysis has seen a tremendous
rise in popularity when measured in
recent scientic publications. A tremendous
amount of new experimental ndings have
been published at a breathtaking pace
over the last several years which implies
the golden age and gold rush of the reading the most recent and exciting nd-
organocatalytic eld.
The communications and feature articles
in this web collection cover important
up-to-date information on organocatalysis,
and sketch the fruitful development
of this exciting eld. In particular, the
major contributions originated from
(1) enamine and iminium catalysis;
(2) SOMO and radical enamine catalysis;
(3) amine, DMAP and phosphine
catalysis; (4) carbene-catalysis, ketone
and iminium salt catalysis; (5) organo-
catalysis using guanidine, amidine and
Cinchona alkaloids; (6) organocatalysis
with Brnsted acids, thiourea and
peptides; and (7) phase-transfer catalysis.
In addition, several one-pot multi-step pro-
cedures lead to highly functionalized pro-
ducts of wide synthetic applicability. The
articles in this issue demonstrate a high, yet
sophisticated level of activity in addition to
the scope and limitations of this promising
eld. Accordingly, the readers will enjoy
ings in the current organocatalytic eld.

Keiji Maruoka is currently Professor of
Chemistry at the Graduate School of
Science, Kyoto University. His research
focuses on bidentate Lewis acid chemistry,
asymmetric phase-transfer catalysis, and
the design and synthetic utility of high-
performance organocatalysts.
Prof. Dr. Benjamin List, is the managing
director of the Max-Planck-Institut fur
Kohlenforschung in Mulheim an der
Ruhr, Germany and a honorary professor
of chemistry at the University of
Cologne. His research focuses on developing
new catalysis concepts.

Professor Hisashi Yamamoto is chairman Liu-Zhu Gong is currently a Changjiang

of the Molecular Catalysis Center at
Chubu University, Japan, Emeritus
Professor at the University of Chicago,
USA, and Emeritus Professor at Nagoya
University, Japan. He is interested in the
area of chiral Brnsted acid catalysts,
N-Nitroso Aldol (N-NA), and O-Nitroso
Aldol reactions.
Scholar Professor of organic chemistry
at the University of Science and Tech-
nology of China. His current research
interest is focused on the organo- and
transition metal-catalyzed asymmetric
synthesis and total synthesis of natural
products.

This journal is c The Royal Society of Chemistry 2012 Chem. Commun., 2012, 48, 10703 10703