Palladium-catalyzed allylic C-H bond functionalization of olefins.

Transition metal-mediated carbon-hydrogen bond cleavage and functionalization is a mechanistically interesting and synthetically attractive process. One of the important cases is the removal of a allylic hydrogen from an olefin by a Pd" salt to yield a pi-allylpalladium complex, followed by nucleophilic attack to efficient produce allylic derivatives. In contrast to the well-known allylic acetoxylation of cyclohexene, the reaction of open-chain olefins is fairly poor until recent several years. Some palladium catalytic systems have been reported to achieve allylic C-H functionalization, including acetoxylation, amination and alkylation of terminal alkenes. In the most of cases, ligand is crucial to the success of the transformation. This review surveys the recent development of palladium-catalyzed allylic C-H functionalziation of alkenes. These results promise a significant increase in the scope of olefin transformation.