C-H Activation of Alkanes in Organic Synthesis - Aromatic synthesis

What an achievement in catalysis. These workers are using the inert alkanes as starting materials, and convert them into aromatic compounds under iridium catalysis - an atom-economical dehydrogenative reaction. This sets a standard for the kind of chemistry we want in an era after ‘cross-coupling chemistry are awarded a Nobel prize’ : C-H Activation of the most unreactive substrates to give useful chemical compounds.

*Diagrams above from Nature Chemistry and http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/December/19121001.asp

Catalytic dehydroaromatization of n-alkanes by pincer-ligated iridium complexes
Ritu Ahuja, Benudhar Punji, Michael Findlater, Carolyn Supplee, William Schinski, Maurice Brookhart & Alan S. Goldman, NATURE CHEMISTRY

http://www.nature.com.eproxy1.lib.hku.hk/nchem/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nchem.946.html

This achievment is covered in RSC Chemistry World Magazine

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/December/19121001.asp