Organomercury Compounds in Organic Synthesis

Organomercurials have been known since 1850 and many synthetic routes to these compounds presently exist. The ability of these compounds to accommodate a wide variety of functional groups and to tolerate quite diverse reaction conditions makes them attractive as synthetic intermediates. While the solvomercuration‐demercuration and divalent carbon transfer reactions remain the most widely used of the organomercurial reactions, a number of new synthetic procedures employing organomercurials have been developed in recent years. Many of these involve transmetallation reactions with palladium salts.