Recently, the team led by Distinguished Research Fellow Liu Weiping and Prof. Zhao Shengyin from the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CCEB) published a paper entitled “Manganese-Catalyzed Chemoselective Coupling of Secondary Alcohols, Primary Alcohols and Methanol” in the Angewandte Chemie International Edition, an internationally recognized journal.The first author is Tang Jun, a master’s student from the CCEBin the class of 202. The second author isHe Jingxi, an undergraduate student from the CCEBin the class of 2018. Thecorresponding authors are Liu Weipingand Prof. Zhao Shengyin. Donghua University is the sole affiliation.
The team utilized a manganese catalyst to modulate the rate of alcohol dehydrogenation and unsaturated bond hydrogenation to achieve a three-component selective hydrogen-borrowing coupling of methanol, primary alcohols, and secondary alcohols. It enabled the rapid and selective synthesis of a series of β,β-methylated/alkylated secondary alcohols. The catalytic system can obtain the target products in moderate to excellent yields.
Figure: Catalytic cross-coupling of secondary alcohols and challenges
in three-component alcohol assembly
