Understanding oxidative addition in organometallics: a closer look

Abstract

Understanding oxidative addition is crucial for the prediction of chemical reactivity and to explain mechanisms of reactions that are catalyzed by organometallic complexes. Despite its importance in the organic and inorganic curriculums, students frequently encounter difficulties with this concept. The goal of this study is to present oxidative addition by highlighting the history, fundamental concept, mechanism and scope. Relevance to current applications is briefly described. The majority of results discussed in this review have been derived from recent decades to ensure completeness. Moreover, classical oxidative addition of single-metal two-electron reaction which was not observed earlier for f-block elements due to their irreversible one- or multi-electron redox reactions, has recently been explored for a uranium complex and is presented.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Oxidative addition
• Organometallics
• Vaska's complex
• metal complex
• uranium complex

Acknowledgements

Behera would like to thank post-graduate students at School of Chemistry, Sambalpur University for the useful interactive sessions in this theme, and the university itself for the support.

Dedication

This work is dedicated to Professor Anil J. Elias on the eve of his 60^th birthday.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.