Hydration of alkynes catalyzed by Au(III) complexes

Abstract

Initially, gold was completely ignored because of its inactivity on homogenous catalysis. This idea changed over the 2000s, when the homogenous gold catalysts were proven to be useful to perform different synthesis reactions, such as the hydration of terminal and internal alkynes. In these particular reactions, Au(I) and Au(III) complexes are able to activate the alkynes by nucleophilic attack. The hydration of terminal alkynes is relatively straightforward since it is only obtained the Markovnikov product, but the hydration of internal alkynes is slower and not regioselective. In this work we will focus on the activity and selectivity of Au(III) catalysts.