Iron catalyzed CN bond formation

Diversely functionalized nitrogen-containing heteroaromatic building blocks, fine chemicals and active pharmaceutical or agrochemical ingredients are conveniently prepared via CN bond formation as the key step. Since beginning of the last decade, there has been a flurry of intense research in forging CN bonds using iron catalysts due to their low cost, high natural abundance and non-toxic nature. The present review offers an overview of CN bond forming reactions involving aryl, allyl, propargyl and unactivated alkyl electrophilic substrates with nitrogen nucleophiles via the regular cross coupling reactions catalyzed by iron. In the miscellaneous section, a set of novel transformations facilitated by iron are included as well.