ChemInform Abstract: Direct Carbonylation of Benzyl Alcohol and Its Analogues Catalyzed by Palladium and HI in Aqueous Systems and Mechanistic Studies.

✍ Scribed by Y.-S. LIN; A. YAMAMOTO

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Weight: 36 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0931-7597
• DOI: 10.1002/chin.199826079

✦ Synopsis

The carbonylation of benzyl alcohol (Ia) with carbon monoxide in the presence of a HI-[Pd(PPh 3 ) 4 ] catalytic system proceeds smoothly to give the phenylacetic acid (IIIa) as main product. The same acid can be obtained by carbonylation of benzyl formate, dibenzyl ether and benzyl phenylacetate. The carbonylation procedure can be extended to further arylmethanol analogues (I), (VI), (IX), and (XIII). Appropriate diols provide direct access to lactone derivatives [cf. (VII), (X)]. A detailed mechanistic study of the catalytic cycle is given. -(LIN, Y.-S.;