Noncovalent Interaction in Transition Metal-Catalyzed Selective C-H Activation

Transition metal-catalyzed direct C-H functionalization is one of the most efficient and powerful tools for the rapid synthesis of organic molecules. The use of functional groups in the molecules or covalently attached coordinating groups as directing groups has been realized as a major strategy to control the selectivity. Noncovalent interactions are of great importance in the field of molecular biology, supramolecular chemistry, material science and drug discovery. More recently, the use of well-designed ligands to enable the site-selective C-H functionalization via noncovalent interactions has emerged as a highly promising yet relatively less explored strategy. In this perspective, recent advances in this cutting-edge area are summarized. The perspective was classified into four sections according to the type of noncovalent interactions, including hydrogen bonding, ion pair, Lewis acid-base interaction and electrostatic interaction. Emphasis is placed on the mode of noncovalent interactions among the transition metals, ligands and substrates. The limitation of current research and the prospect of future work will also be discussed. We anticipate that this strategy might become a promising complementary strategy to control the positional selectivity in C-H functionalization reactions.