Cascade reactions are an emerging technology in organic chemistry, introducing elegance and efficiency to synthetic strategies. This Review provides an overview of the novel and recent achievements in cascade processes catalyzed by bionanostructures. The examples here selected demonstrate the advances related to the application of heterogeneous nanocatalysts—nanostructures and biomolecules combined by different manner—in efficient cascade processes. Metallic nanoparticles supported on biomolecules, multienzymatic systems or bionanohybrid structures with multicatalytic activities (containing both organometallic and biocatalytic activity) were selectively and efficiently used alone or in cooperative fashion. This Review highlights examples of efficient and interesting catalytic cascade processes in organic chemistry, ultrasensitive biosensing, or energy storage and conversion, underscoring their tremendous future potential in chemical synthesis.

Funding is from Spanish Ministry (MAT-2012−31127) and European Union Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement 312483 - ESTEEM2 (Integrated Infrastructure Initiative-I3).

Peer Reviewed