Dual Gold Catalysis

For more than a decade the innovative field of homogeneous catalysis by gold was dominated by the interaction of the substrate molecule with one gold center, in most cases in mononuclear gold complexes. The initial interaction was typically a π-coordination of a carbon-carbon double bond to the gold, an activation of the unsaturated substrate molecule by a π-acidic metal center. Only recently clear evidence for reactions that involve the activation of organic substrates by two gold centers was obtained. In that new class of gold-catalyzed reactions the two gold centers interact with the substrate in a very different way. One gold complex is σ-bonded to a terminal alkynyl group in the substrate, the other one…