Carbon-carbon bond forming reaction is one of key steps for the synthesis of natural products and pharmaceuticals. Synthesis of biologically active compounds involves many carbon-carbon bond forming processes, which should be efficient and ecological without forming large amounts of waste byproducts. Thus, development of atom economic, cost-effective, and environmentally benign C-C bond forming reaction is highly advantageous in the synthetic organic reaction.
The use of hydrogen gas in catalytic reduction is one of the oldest and powerful catalytic methods. Therefore, catalytic hydrogenation has been extensively utilized in the industry and academia; however, the hydrogen-mediated C-C bond formation has been achieved only in the alkene hydroformylations and Fisher-Tropsch process by assistance of carbon monoxide. The expansion of the hydrogen-mediated reactions beyond simple reduction and Fisher-Tropsch process would be of a great importance to the organic synthesis.
Herein, to develop hydrogen-mediated C-C bond formation, we hope to report platinum(II)-catalyzed C-C coupling of a variety using π-functional groups under hydrogenation conditions. The following chapters II and III discuss platinum-catalyzed hydrogenative coupling of activated alkene and alkyne-aldehydes. Platinum-catalyzed hydrogenative cyclizations of allene-π functional groups are described in chapter IV. Finally, we wish to introduce the first platinum-catalyzed cyclization of allyl halides-hydrazones in chapter V.