Recent Progress in Selenophenes Synthesis from Inorganic Se-Precursors

Background: Simplification and cost reduction of the selenophene derivatives synthesis is of intense interest due to their increasing applications in functional materials and pharmacology. Since there has been significant progress in the chemistry of organoselenium compounds in the past 30 years, a large diversity of synthetic methods are available to perform selenophene ring formation. Objective: In this minireview, we emphasize on the methods utilizing simple inorganic compounds as selenium precursors. In particular, widely available and relatively cheap elemental selenium, selenium dioxide and sodium selenide are covered. The review covers the publications during the last 15 years. Conclusion: It is clear from the review of the topic that most of the methods starting from simple inorganic selenium precursors are based on the addition of selenium to multiple carbon-carbon bonds and/or substitution of halogen atoms. The described approaches enable selenophenes with a variety of substituents at different selenophene ring positions as well as conjugated systems.