Iron-Catalyzed Borrowing Hydrogen β- C(sp3)-Methylation of Alcohols

Kurt Polidano; Jonathan M J Williams; Louis C Morrill

doi:10.1021/acscatal.9b02461

Iron-Catalyzed Borrowing Hydrogen β- C(sp³)-Methylation of Alcohols

ACS Catal. 2019 Sep 6;9(9):8575-8580. doi: 10.1021/acscatal.9b02461. Epub 2019 Aug 21.

Authors

Kurt Polidano¹, Jonathan M J Williams², Louis C Morrill¹

Affiliations

¹ Cardiff Catalysis Institute, School of Chemistry, Cardiff University, Main Building, Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT, U.K.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, U.K.

Abstract

Herein we report the iron-catalyzed β-C(sp³)-methylation of primary alcohols using methanol as a C1 building block. This borrowing hydrogen approach employs a well-defined bench-stable (cyclopentadienone)iron(0) carbonyl complex as precatalyst (5 mol %) and enables a diverse selection of substituted 2-arylethanols to undergo β-C(sp³)-methylation in good isolated yields (24 examples, 65% average yield).