Paradine Shauna M
Department of Chemistry, University of Rochester, 120 Trustee Rd, Rochester, NY 14627, United States.
Tetrahedron. 2025 Oct 1;184. doi: 10.1016/j.tet.2025.134781. Epub 2025 Jun 9.
Ureas and related compounds represent a popular class of organocatalysts, exploiting their dual hydrogen bond donor capacity to promote reactions and enable asymmetric catalysis. The use of these compounds as ligands in transition metal catalysis has been considerably less developed, despite their ease of synthesis and versatility as ligands. However, there have been notable developments over the last 15-20 years that demonstrate the viability of ureas and closely related compounds as an attractive ligand platform for transition metal catalysis. This perspective will highlight seminal work using (thio)ureas as ancillary ligands, where they engage in non-covalent interactions with substrates in the secondary coordination sphere of transition metals, and as primary ligands, where they coordinate directly to the metal to promote catalytic reactions.
脲类及相关化合物是一类常见的有机催化剂，利用其双氢键供体能力来促进反应并实现不对称催化。尽管这些化合物易于合成且作为配体具有多功能性，但它们在过渡金属催化中作为配体的应用却发展得相当少。然而，在过去15至20年中有显著进展，证明了脲类及密切相关化合物作为过渡金属催化中一个有吸引力的配体平台的可行性。本综述将重点介绍使用（硫）脲作为辅助配体的开创性工作，在这种情况下它们在过渡金属的二级配位球中与底物进行非共价相互作用，以及作为主要配体的情况，即它们直接与金属配位以促进催化反应。
