General Introduction

Abstract

As the title above suggests, this first chapter is devoted to make a general introduction to the main topic of this present thesis: the Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. With this aim, in the first part of this chapter the concept of catalysis, its origin, as well as other related topics will be briefly introduced. Next, in the second part of this chapter, the definition of C–C cross-coupling reactions and a summary of their generally accepted reaction pathway will be presented. Finally, the elementary steps that take part in this type of reactions will be described separately. Furthermore, for each of these steps, the most relevant mechanistic studies on Pd-catalyzed C–C cross-coupling reactions reported in the last years, with particular attention to the theoretical ones, will be reviewed. In principle, all the concepts provided in this first chapter should be more than enough to contextualize all the results obtained in the course of this thesis, and that are presented in Chaps. 4, 5 and 6.