ABSTRACT
Books on organic synthesis traditionally focus on reaction types and strategies in a qualitative sense citing vast numbers of example reactions and plans from the literature to substantiate points made by authors. No numerical analyses are performed on reaction or plan performance beyond using the elementary metrics of individual reaction and overall yield and number of steps. There is little quantitative analysis made using graph theoretical methods though the literature in this “eld is well developed. Books on the subject of synthesis plans for pharmaceuticals substances, in particular, give plans without reaction yield data and without balancing chemical equations. This does not allow quantitative comparisons between plans to a common target to be made particularly when the most material ef“cient one is to be sought. Interested readers need to go through the tedious task of looking up original papers and patents in the literature to gather the necessary data. Books published on the subject of green chemistry since the early 1990s have been of the “show and tell” genre where past environmentally bad processes and syntheses are compared to modern “greened up” versions that mainly utilize so-called “green solvents” such as ionic liquids, water, supercritical CO2, etc., solvent-free reactions, and microwave irradiation. None of these books have discussions on quantitative measurements of just how “green” synthesis plans are, especially when comparing ones that utilize bio-feedstocks versus traditional petroleum-based feedstocks. Books and book chapters on graph theory applied to organic synthesis are few in number and emphasize the mathematical aspects with little practical applications that a synthetic organic chemist who is not receptive to the value of mathematical analysis can use in his or her work. The average synthetic and process chemist is largely unaware of this literature and if exposed to it would be immediately turned off by the mathematical jargon and esoteric language used. The bibliography of references at the end of this chapter highlights some of the hallmark works available. Though all of these references have great value for both the novice and seasoned chemist practitioner alike, there is room for something different.
