Perrhenate Esters in New Catalytic Reactions

There has been tremendous interest in the use of alkyltrioxo-rhenium complexes as catalysts for various organic transformations. Although such applications are now well known and, indeed, have been widely studied, other organorhenium oxide families, namely the perrhenate esters O3ReOR, have received much less attention. In this review, such Re-VII species are shown to be very promising catalysts and several recent examples are presented, with the aim of shedding light on their synthetic potential as a new tool for organic chemists.