Recent advances and emerging opportunities in mechanism and applications of earth abundant manganese-catalysts for sustainable organic transformations

Manganese (Mn) is a perfect candidate as catalyst in the sustainable organic transformations. It is the second most abundant metal in earth's crust, inexpensive, and non-toxic in the nature. We expect it to replace precious metals in the novel metal catalysis. Mn-catalysts and its pincer-type complexes with bidentate and tridentate ligands have shown explosive growth since 2016. Manganese complexes, oxides, and halides have displayed excellent catalytic activity in the organic transformations. Manganese catalysts have been used in C-C bond formation & C-H functionalisation, late-stage fluorination, hydrosilylation, hydrogenation of unsaturated C-O, and C-C bonds, and cross-coupling reactions with unique reactivity and selectivity. Even then, Mn catalysis has not got the same attention as other earth-abundant metals such as Fe and Co. This review highlights the recent advances and emerging opportunities of Mn-catalyzed organic transformation based on their intrinsic mechanistic advances and potentials, covering literature up to 2024.