A phosphine-oxide-promoted, cobalt-catalysed reductive etherification using syngas as a reductant is reported. This novel methodology was successfully used to prepare a broad range of unsymmetrical ethers from various aldehydes and alcohols containing diverse functional groups, and was scaled-up to multigram scale under comparably mild conditions. Mechanistic experiments support an acetalization-hydrogenation sequence.
Keywords: base-metal catalysis; cobalt; etherification; hydrogenation; phosphine oxides.
© 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.