Alkylation of Electron‐Deficient Olefins through Conjugate Addition of Organozinc Reagents: An Update

Abstract This review focuses on the applications of organozinc reagents in conjugate addition reactions. Organozinc compounds are a class of organometallic reagent used in various reactions such as addition, substitution, and coupling reactions. The conjugate addition or 1, 4‐addition is one of the most useful bond forming strategies used in organic synthesis since broad range of nucleophiles can be employed in the reaction. Addition of organozinc to electron‐deficient olefins attracts synthetic chemists as it preferably undergoes conjugate addition over 1,2‐addition unlike other organometallic reagents, such as Grignard reagent or organolithium. Many natural products were also synthesized by applying the conjugate addition reaction of organozinc. Moreover, organozinc reagents have superior functional group compatibility and can be easily prepared relative to other organometallic compounds. Consequently, conjugate additions of organozinc reagents were highly studied and having a review on it is very important at present. Though a few reviews are available, they either do not focus directly on the organozinc reagents or not on the conjugate addition. We hope that this review article will be of great use to organic researchers.