Tandem Acid/Pd-Catalyzed Reductive Rearrangement of Glycol Derivatives.

Herein, we describe the acid/Pd-tandem-catalyzed transformation of glycol derivatives into terminal formic esters. Mechanistic investigations show that the substrate undergoes rearrangement to an aldehyde under [1,2] hydrogen migration and cleavage of an oxygen-based leaving group. The leaving group is trapped as its formic ester, and the aldehyde is reduced and subsequently esterified to a formate. Whereas the rearrangement to the aldehyde is catalyzed by sulfonic acids, the reduction step requires a unique catalyst system comprising a PdII or Pd0 precursor in loadings as low as 0.75 mol % and α,α'-bis(di-tert-butylphosphino)-o-xylene as ligand. The reduction step makes use of formic acid as an easy-to-handle transfer reductant. The substrate scope of the transformation encompasses both aromatic and aliphatic substrates and a variety of leaving groups.

Homogeneous Palladium-Catalyzed Transfer Hydrogenolysis of Benzylic Alcohols Using Formic Acid as Reductant.

We report the first homogeneous palladium-based transfer hydrogenolysis of benzylic alcohols using an in situ formed palladium-phosphine complex and formic acid as reducing agent. The reaction requires a catalyst loading as low as only 1 mol % of palladium and just a slight excess of reductant to obtain the deoxygenated alkylarenes in good to excellent yields. Besides demonstrating the broad applicability for primary, secondary and tertiary benzylic alcohols, a reaction intermediate could be identified. Additionally, it could be shown that partial oxidation of the applied phosphine ligand was beneficial for the course of the reaction, presumably by stabilizing the active catalyst. Reaction profiles and catalyst poisoning experiments were used to characterize the catalyst, the results of which indicate a homogeneous metal complex as the active species.