History
The first investigations into the catalytic coupling of Grignard reagents with organic halides date back to the 1941 study of cobalt catalysts by Karasch and Fields. In 1971, Tamura and Kochi elaborated on this work in a series of publications demonstrating the viability of catalysts based on silver, copper and iron. However, these early approaches produced poor yields due to substantial formation of homocoupling products, where two identical species are coupled.
These efforts culminated in 1972, when the Corriu and Kumada groups concurrently reported the use of nickel-containing catalysts. With the introduction of palladium catalysts in 1975 by the Murahashi group, the scope of the reaction was further broadened. Subsequently, many additional coupling techniques have been developed, culminating in the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognized Ei-ichi Negishi, Akira Suzuki and Richard F. Heck for their contributions to the field.
Read more about this topic: Kumada Coupling
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