Novel Organic Transformations Arising from Gold(I) Chemistry

Abstract

The use of gold in organic chemistry is a relatively recent occurrence. In addition to being previously considered too expensive, it was also believed to be chemically inert. Soon after the early reports indicating its rich reactivity, the number of reports on chemical transformations involving gold sky rocketed. One such report by Toste and coworkers demonstrated the intramolecular addition of silyl enol ether onto Au(I) activated alkynes, resulting in a 5-exo dig cyclization. The first part (Chapter 1) of this thesis discusses the development of a Au(I) catalyzed polycyclization reaction inspired by this transformation. The reaction demonstrated the ability of Au(I) to successfully catalyze the formation of multiple C-C bonds and resulted in the synthesis of benzothiophenes, benzofurans, carbazoles and hydrindene. With the current resurgence of photochemical transformations being reported in literature, various opportunities for the use of Au(I) complexes arose. The substantial relativistic effect observed in gold which make it a good soft Lewis acid also has a significant influence on the redox potential of this metal. Chapter 3 of this thesis discusses the development of a Au(I) photocatalyzed process which benefits from having both a strong oxidation and reduction potential for the reduction of carbon-halide bonds. Radical reductions and cyclizations were accessed with the use of polynuclear Au(I) photocatalysts. In depth analysis of catalytically active Au(I) complexes helped elucidate the mechanism by which this photochemical reaction occurs. This part (Chapter 4) also covers serendipitously discovered uncatalyzed photochemical transformations derived from our work with gold. The halogenation reaction of primary alcohols was successfully achieved and a combination of our developed methods resulted in an efficient dehydroxylation protocol.