Transition-Metal-Mediated Functionalization of White Phosphorus

Recently there has been great interest in the reactivity of transition-metal (TM) centers towards white phosphorus (P₄). This has ultimately been motivated by a desire to find TM-mediated alternatives to the current industrial routes used to transform P₄ into myriad useful P-containing products, which are typically indirect, wasteful, and highly hazardous. Such a TM-mediated process can be divided into two steps: activation of P₄ to generate a polyphosphorus complex TM-P_n, and subsequent functionalization of this complex to release the desired phosphorus-containing product. The former step has by now become well established, allowing the isolation of many different TM-P_n products. In contrast, productive functionalization of these complexes has proven extremely challenging and has been achieved only in a relative handful of cases. In this review we provide a comprehensive summary of successful TM-P_n functionalization reactions, where TM-P_n must be accessible by reaction of a TM precursor with P₄. We hope that this will provide a useful resource for continuing efforts that are working towards this highly challenging goal of modern synthetic chemistry.