This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry concerns the development of methods for palladiumcatalyzed
formation of carbon-carbon bonds via so-called cross-coupling reactions. The
formation of new carbon-carbon bonds is of central importance in organic chemistry and a
prerequisite for all life on earth. Through the assembly of carbon atoms into chains, complex
molecules, e.g. molecules of life, can be created. The importance of the synthesis of carboncarbon
bonds is reflected by the fact that Nobel Prizes in Chemistry have previously been given
to this area: The Grignard reaction (1912), the Diels-Alder reaction (1950), the Wittig reaction
(1979), and olefin metathesis to Y. Chauvin, R. H. Grubbs, and R. R. Schrock (2005)
The principle of palladium-catalyzed cross couplings is that two molecules are assembled on the
metal via the formation of metal-carbon bonds. In this way the carbon atoms bound to
palladium are brought very close to one another. In the next step they couple to one another and
this leads to the formation of a new carbon-carbon single bond. There are two types of cross