Negishi, Ei-ichi (1935-2021), a Japanese chemist, shared the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work in developing an efficient way to link two carbon atoms together. Such bonds can be used to assemble large and complex organic (carbon-based) molecules. Negishi shared the Nobel Prize with the American chemist Richard Heck and the Japanese chemist Akira Suzuki.
To produce many organic chemicals in a lab, chemists must bond two or more carbon atoms together. But such bonding can be difficult because carbon atoms are generally stable. Thus, they do not react readily with one another. In addition, large organic molecules may contain many carbon atoms. Getting two specific carbon atoms to bond can be a difficult and inefficient task.
In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Heck refined the use of the metal palladium as a catalyst in producing specific carbon-carbon bonds. A catalyst is a substance that increases the efficiency or speed of a chemical reaction. In the Heck reaction, palladium is mixed with two different organic molecules. A single palladium atom bonds with a specific carbon atom on each molecule. This short-lived bond brings the two carbon atoms close together. The two carbon atoms then release the palladium atom and bond to each other, connecting the molecules into one larger molecule. In a paper published in 1977, Negishi showed how he refined the Heck reaction by introducing zinc into the mixture. His reaction linked a zinc atom to one of the organic molecules. This addition enabled the reaction to be performed with greater efficiency and under milder conditions. This reaction became known as the Negishi reaction. Suzuki developed a similar improvement using boron.
Negishi was born on July 14, 1935, in Changchun, China, which was then controlled by Japan. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1958. He went on to earn his Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963. In 1966, he moved to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. In 1972, he joined the faculty at Syracuse University in New York. He returned to Purdue as a full professor in 1979. Negishi died on June 6, 2021.
See also Heck, Richard Fred ; Suzuki, Akira .
