Non-metal-catalysed C-C coupling

Chinese chemists have successfully coupled aromatic molecules without the use of a transition metal catalyst - something that people have been trying to do for years with little success. Such cross-coupling reactions are crucial to organic synthesis and typically require expensive metals such as palladium. Efforts to find cheaper and more widely available alternatives have proved challenging. 

Now, Wei Liu, from Wuhan University, and colleagues appear to have succeeded by using an organic catalyst, DMEDA (N,N'-dimethylethane-1,2-diamine) in the presence of the base potassium tert-butoxide. The team coupled unactivated benzene with a range of aryl iodides in the presence of the organic catalyst and the base. More...

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/August/11081002.asp