Catalysts containing the adamantane scaffold

The bulky, but symmetrically beautiful, adamantane ring system is now pervasive throughout physical, medicinal and synthetic chemistry, since it was first discovered in 1924 and coined “dekaterpene”. This fascinating name lived up to its natural product roots when adamantane was isolated from crude oil in 1933, but it was not until 1957 in a landmark contribution by Paul von Ragué Schleyer that adamantane was made readily accessible through synthesis. Beyond the legacy to physical and medicinal chemistry, the adamantane moiety has been quintessential in the development of some of the most important catalysts to date. Considering adamantane’s impact on catalyst development past, present and future, this subject is for the first time reviewed herein