A well-defined low-valent cobalt catalyst Co(PMe₃)₄ with dimethylzinc: a simple catalytic approach for the reductive dimerization of benzyl halides

Brendan J. Fallon (1) , Vincent Corcé (1) , Muriel Amatore (2, 1) , Corinne Aubert (2, 1) , Fabrice Chemla (1) , Franck Ferreira (1) , Alejandro Perez-Luna (1) , Marc Petit (2, 1, 3)

1 IPCM - Institut Parisien de Chimie Moléculaire
2 MACO - Méthodes et Application en Chimie Organique
3 CASCH - CAtalysis and Sustainable CHemistry

Herein, we report the first catalytic version of a cobalt-catalysed reductive homocoupling of benzyl halides which proceeds with low catalyst loadings (0.5 to 5 mol%). By synthetizing each cobalt intermediate we demonstrate that reaction proceeds through two single electron transfers (SET) and that dimethylzinc is only involved in the regeneration of the catalytic species.

Domaines: Chimie

Brendan J. Fallon, Vincent Corcé, Muriel Amatore, Corinne Aubert, Fabrice Chemla, et al.. A well-defined low-valent cobalt catalyst Co(PMe₃)₄ with dimethylzinc: a simple catalytic approach for the reductive dimerization of benzyl halides. New J. Chem., 2016, 40 (12), pp.9912--9916. ⟨10.1039/C6NJ03265F⟩. ⟨hal-01638307⟩