A Golden Boost to an Old Reaction.

The article discusses the role of gold catalysts in promoting selective reduction of aromatic nitro compounds to anilines. To produce anilines, aromatic nitro compounds must be reduced in a hydrogenation reaction. In the process, gold particles functions to catalyzed the reduction of various functionalized aromatic nitro compounds without hydroxylamine accumulation and with high chemoselectivity. The discovery of these catalysts furthers the study for the chemoselective catalytic reduction of nitro compounds with hydrogenation-sensitive substituents.