Dedicated to Professor Cesare Gennari on the occasion of his 70th birthday.Furfural and related compounds are building blocks of industrial interest, obtained from raw biomass. Their use as precursors of basic and fine chemicals has gained increasing attention as a green alternative to petroleum-derived compounds. Several works have reported the functionalization of furfurals to obtain a wider range of chemicals, opening up new synthetic possibilities and applications, ranging from biofuels to pharmaceuticals. Among these works, processes based on CÀ H activation are the most attractive ones for their atom economy and the possibility to use non-activated substrates. This minireview summarizes the reported methods of direct CÀ H functionalization of furfurals without prior modification of the redox state of the aldehyde function. In particular, the transition metal catalyzed functionalization of each bond of the heteroaromatic nucleus of these molecules is systematically discussed, as well as examples of CÀ H transformations of the aldehyde function.
The Front Cover sketches the generation of the platform molecules furfural and 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural from agricultural waste, and their subsequent valorization by transformation into value‐added chemicals, as imagined by artist Monica Rizzi. More information can be found in the Review by G. Poli, J. Oble et al.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.