Cluster Preface: Modern Nickel-Catalyzed Reactions

Nickel has historically been surrounded by a cloud of mystery. While trying to extract copper from a mineral deposit, miners found in the eighteenth century that it was not only impossible to do, but also they became seriously ill. Convinced that the deposit was the mischievous work of the devil, miners named it ‘Kupfernickel’ or ‘Old Nick’s Copper’, a colloquial name for the devil according to Saxon mythology. Years later, Axel Fredrik Cronstedt managed to identify arsenic as being responsible for the miners’ illnesses, together with a new metal that he called nickel. It was not until the twentieth century that the scientific community recognized the potential of nickel as a component in catalysts for synthetic organic endeavors. In 1922, Nobel Laureate Paul Sabatier had already noticed the outstanding catalytic activity of nickel together with its Achilles’ heel, which was nothing but the difficulty to control its promiscuous reactivity, suggesting that Ni should not be suited for synthetic methods.