Recent development of biomimetic halogenation inspired by vanadium dependent haloperoxidase

Organohalide is one of the most important and useful compounds in organic chemistry, broadly embodied in diverse bioactive molecules, organic materials and agrochemicals. Installation of halide to organic compound, in most cases, still relies on traditional electrophilic halogenation (e.g., utilizing Br2, I2 and Cl2), particularly in industrial production. Such process unavoidably generates undesired environmentally unfriendly by-products (e.g., HBr from Br2). By contrast, in nature the haloperoxidase produces organic halides under mild condition in atom economy. But they suffer from high cost, limited substrate scope and specific working condition. The biomimetic halogenation inspired by nature, in theory, provides a potential solution for these limitations, serving as an alternative green halogenation approach. In this review, the author summarized the recent development of biomimetic halogenation inspired by vanadium dependent haloperoxidase (VHPO). Evident progress has been achieved in its functional mimics utilizing transition metal (TM) catalysts, including vanadate (V5+), molybdate (Mo6+), tungstate (W6+), and rhenate (Re7+). These robust biomimetic catalysts work efficiently under mild condition with broad substrate scope, and even afforded drug molecules in preparative scale. The challenges and opportunities for further development in this field were also discussed, along with the elucidation of VHPO’s structure, functional mechanism and synthetic application.