Recent Developments in Indium Metal and Its Salts in Organic Synthesis

Indium and its salts have emerged as promising catalysts for effecting various functional group transformations in last two decades. There are a great number of reported reactions involving indium reagents; the versatility and the applicability of these reactions makes it a hot field to explore, and it attracts much interest from organic chemists. The development of indium reagents in C–C bond‐formation reactions, coupling reactions, asymmetric synthesis in the presence of chiral‐metal ligand complexes, etc. has made this field more attractive. Indium salts have pronounced Lewis acid character and are also attractive because of their moderate stability to water. Here we highlight developments in indium chemistry reported in the last eight years. Indium chemistry is of great importance because of the huge potential of indium metal for induction of chirality through the use of chiral indium complexes, for the introduction of organic moieties through organoindium reagents, and for highly efficient reaction catalysis. A brief survey of recently reported reactions is illustrated with selected examples.