Discovery of New Multi Component Reactions with Combinatorial Methods

The discovery of novel chemical reactions or reaction se- quences that are able to generate useful chemical products may be regarded as the heart of organic chemistry. We present here con- cepts and methods on how to find and explore new multi component reactions, especially with automated combinatorial methods. This "combinatorial reaction finding" provides also a powerful tool to the understanding of the rules of organic chemistry, especially structure-reactivity relationships.