Reviving organobismuth chemistry

 ‘Bismuth has had its ups and downs over the decades – a bit like the economy,’ says Liam Ball. But while the global economy is floundering at best, organobismuth chemistry is very much on the up and Ball’s research exemplifies this progress.

Ball’s PhD was on gold-catalysed coupling methods, but he came to work with bismuth after a referee of one of his PhD manuscripts requested he synthesise a specific organogold compound – one for which the only literature method involved bismuth. Although Ball says that approach ‘ultimately failed in [his] hands’, it sparked his interest in the field. As he delved deeper, he began to identify opportunities to harness reactivity that had largely lain fallow since the late 1980s.