In the last two decades, boron-based catalysis has been gaining increasing traction in the field of organic synthesis. The use of halogenated triarylboranes as main group Lewis acid catalysts is an attractive strategy. It has been applied in a growing number of transformations over the years, where they may perform comparably or even better than the gold standard catalysts. This review discusses methods of borane synthesis and cutting-edge boron-based Lewis acid catalysis, focusing especially on tris(pentafluorophenyl)-borane [B(C6F5)3], and other halogenated triarylboranes, highlighting how boron Lewis acids employed as catalysts can unlock a plethora of unprecedented chemical transformations or improve the efficiency of existing reactions.

Since the beginning of the millennium, organocatalysis has been gaining a predominant role in asymmetric synthesis and it is, nowadays, a foundation of catalysis. Synergistic catalysis, combining two or more different catalytic cycles acting in concert, exploits the vast knowledge acquired in organocatalysis and other fields to perform reactions that would be otherwise impossible. Merging organocatalysis with photo-, metallo- and organocatalysis itself, researchers have ingeniously devised a range of activations. This feature review, focusing on selected synergistic catalytic approaches, aims to provide a flavor of the creativity and innovation in the area, showing ground-breaking examples of organocatalysts, such as proline derivatives, hydrogen bond-mediated, Cinchona alkaloids or phosphoric acids catalysts, which work cooperatively with different catalytic partners.

Synergistic catalysis offers the unique possibility of simultaneous activation of both the nucleophile and the electrophile in a reaction. A requirement for this strategy is the stability of the active species towards the reaction conditions and the two concerted catalytic cycles. Since the beginning of the century, aminocatalysis has been established as a platform for the stereoselective activation of carbonyl compounds through HOMO-raising or LUMO-lowering. The burgeoning era of aminocatalysis has been driven by a deep understanding of these activation and stereoinduction modes, thanks to the introduction of versatile and privileged chiral amines. The aim of this review is to cover recent developments in synergistic strategies involving aminocatalysis in combination with organo-, metal-, photo-, and electrocatalysis, focusing on the evolution of privileged aminocatalysts architectures.

Benzazetidines are highly strained and inherently unstable heterocycles. There are only few methodologies for assembling these compounds. Here, a protocol is presented to trap an elusive cyclic, 4-membered hemiaminal structure. This method affords several benzazetidine in moderate to good yields (up to 81%), it uses inexpensive materials and does not require catalysts based on transition metals. The high ring strain energy of these benzazetidine systems was estimated by DFT calculations to be about 32 kcal mol-1. This synthesis can be applied also on gram scale with reaction yield essentially unchanged.

The development of an enantioselective enaminecatalysed addition of masked acetaldehyde to nitroalkenes via a rational approach helped to move away from the use of chloroform. The presented research allows the use of water as a reaction medium, therefore improving the industrial relevance of a protocol to access very important pharmaceut-ical intermediates. Critical to the success is the use of chemometrics-assisted 'Design of Experiments' (DoE) optimisation during the development of the presented new synthetic approach, which allows to investigate the chemical space in a rational way.

Organocatalyst immobilization onto solid supports represents a promising method for enabling asymmetric organocatalysis while retaining the advantages of heterogeneous catalysts, including catalyst separation, recycling, and the use of fixedbed reactors. Understanding how such heterogenized catalytic systems work is fundamental to develop and tailor more efficient ones. Herein, we have elucidated the role of reactant molecular structure on surface interactions and reactivity for asymmetric aldol reactions between benzaldehyde derivatives and hydroxyacetone catalyzed by SBA-15 immobilized L-proline.NMR relaxation time analysis reveals that a stronger interaction between the aldehyde and the catalyst surface reduces catalytic reactivity, which is attributed to reduced access of hydroxyacetone to the L-proline surface sites, hence inhibiting the formation of the enamine intermediate between hydroxyacetone and L-proline. The results show that surface phenomena in these systems are important considerations for reactant selection, opening up new directions to explore in this area of research.

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Part of the "Organocatalysis" Special Collection.