Amine might end palladium’s reign over classic cross coupling reaction

In what experts call an unexpected discovery, chemists found that a simple organic molecule catalyses a classic cross coupling – a reaction type that has long been the domain of transition metal catalysts, in particular palladium.The Suzuki reaction is one of several cross coupling reactions developed in the 1970s that joins up two benzene fragments forming a new carbon–carbon bond. Cross couplings are so robust and experimentally simple that more than 60% of carbon–carbon bonds in medicinal chemistry labs are now made with this reaction.