Heck reaction—State of the art

Abstract

The Heck reaction is one of the most studied coupling reactions and is recognized with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Thousands of articles, hundreds of reviews and a number of books have been published on this topic. All reviews are written exhaustively describing the various aspects of Heck reaction and refer to the work done hitherto. Looking at the quantum of the monographs published, and the reviews based on them, we found a necessity to summarize all reviews on Heck reaction about catalysts, ligands, suggested mechanisms, conditions, methodologies and the compounds formed via Heck reaction in one review and generate a resource of information. One can find almost all the catalysts used so far for Heck reaction in this review.