Remote Functionalization of Carbon-Hydrogen and Carbon-Carbon Bonds by Bare Transition Metal Ions in the Gas Phase

The selective functionaIization of C-H bonds remains one of the major focuses of catalytic and organic chemistry. High selectivity is often achieved by the presence of activating groups which induce the reactivity of the neighbouring C-H bonds by, for example, polarizing the bond, thus making the hydrogen more acidic, or by generally weakening the C-H bond. The selective functionalization of hydrocarbon segments of a molecule remote from any functional group represents a great challenge. While such reactions are common to enzymes which coordinate a functional group and geometrically select a specific section of the molecule (see, for example, the enzymatic conversion of stearic to oleic acid. Scheme 1), only a few cases in solution chemistry are reported [1] where a similar principle seems to be operative.