Recent Advances in Organoselenium Catalysis

Abstract

Organoselenium chemistry has developed as an important tool in the field of synthetic and medicinal chemistry. Various organoselenium reagents have been developed and used successfully to achieve different organic transformations such as selenocyclizations, oxyselenenylations, selenoxide eliminations, etc. Additionally, organoselenium reagents' potential is not limited to their use as stoichiometric reagents, but they have been successfully used as organocatalysts in a number of synthetic transformations. Various organic and inorganic oxidants have been identified as terminal oxidants to regenerate the active catalytic species. In this review article, the recent progress of organoselenium reagents in catalysis is being highlighted along with their asymmetric variants.

Keywords: Organoselenium; catalyst; lactonization; oxidation; selenocyclization; selenoxide elimination.