Rhodium‐Catalyzed Reductive Esterification Using Carbon Monoxide as a Reducing Agent

Abstract

Carbon monoxide used to have a limited number of applications in organic chemistry, but it gradually increases its role as a mild and selective reducing agent. It can be applied for the carbon–heteroatom single bond formation via the reductive addition of hydrogen‐containing nucleophiles to carbonyl compounds. In this paper, rhodium‐catalyzed reductive esterification is described, and a comparative study of the rhodium and ruthenium catalysis in the reductive addition reactions is provided. Rhodium performs better on highly nucleophilic substrates and ruthenium is better for compounds with less nucleophilicity.