By Yundong Wu
Laboratory of Computational Chemistry and Drug Design, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, 518055, China & College of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

In this lecture, mechanistic studies of several catalytic C-H bond activation reactions will be discussed.1,2 (1)  Mechanistic understanding has been developed for direct distal meta-C-H bond (more than ten bonds away) activation in tethered arene containing a remote nitrile. A dimeric Pd-Ag complex as active catalyst has been proposed.3 (2) A novel mechanism has been proposed to understand the effect of  mono-protected amino acid as a ligand to promote the reactivity, regioselectivity,4 and stereoselectivity of Pd-catalyzed C-H bond activations.5 (3) The mechanism can be extended to understand the Pd-catalyzed viny-vinyl coupling reactions.6 

References

1. Cheng, G. J.; Zhang, X. H.; Chung, L. W.; Xu, L. P.; Wu. Y.-D. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 1706.
2. Chen, B.; Hou, X.-L.; Li, Y.-X.; Wu, Y.-D. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2011, 133, 7668
3. (a) Leow, D.; Li, G.; Mei, T.-S.; Yu, J.-Q. Nature 2012, 486, 518. (b) Yang, Y.-F. et. al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 344. 
4. Cheng, G.-J. et. al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 894.
5. Cheng, G.-J. et. al. Chem. Eur. J. 2015, 21, 11180.
6. Zhong X. M.; Cheng, G.-J.; Zhang, X. H.; Wu, Y.-D. Unpublished results.