Teach new tricks for an old dog: Cheap and abundant iron complexes for new catalytic transformations

The development of iron complexes as catalysts in organic transformations is attractive for a number of reasons. Iron is one of the most abundant metals in the earth's crust, it is cheaper than the rare metals, and its toxicity is low. As the cost of rare and precious metals will increase in the Future, the development of new synthetic strategies based on iron are critical. In this brief summary, we discuss two innovative iron-catalysed C-C bond forming reactions through radicals, generated by redox chemistry, or by photocatalysis. These works shine light on the possibility to promote radical transformations by iron complexes that can be advantageously used as starting point to develop new methodologies for the formation of C-C bonds with a cheap and environmental friendly approach.