Challenges and Opportunities in Multicatalysis

TLDR

Multicatalysis is an emerging field that enables efficient, one‑pot transformations of simple substrates into complex products, reducing time, waste, and cost while accessing reactions unattainable by classical methods. This Perspective reviews the distinct challenges and opportunities of multicatalytic strategies and analyzes highly complex systems to highlight their potential. The authors categorize multicatalysis into cooperative, domino, and relay modes, describing each with representative examples and focusing particularly on relay subcategories.

Abstract

Multicatalysis is an emerging field targeting the development of efficient catalytic transformations to quickly convert relatively simple starting materials into more complex value-added products. Within multicatalytic processes either multiple catalysts execute single reactions or precise sequences of multiple catalytic reactions occur in a "one-pot" fashion. Attractively, multicatalytic protocols not only enable transformations that are inaccessible through classic approaches but also are able to significantly reduce time, waste, and cost of the synthetic processes, making organic synthesis more resources efficient. In this Perspective article, we review different strategies in multicatalysis that bring distinct challenges and opportunities. We divide this overarching field into three main categories: cooperative, domino, and relay catalysis. Each category is described along with representative examples to highlight its features. Special emphasis is dedicated to relay catalysis, which is further discussed in its subcategories. Lastly, we provide an analysis of systems that incorporate higher levels of complexity and further underscore the potential of multicatalytic systems.