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Manganese-Catalyzed Hydrogenation of Esters to Alcohols
Noel Angel Espinosa-Jalapa1, Alexander Nerush1, Linda J W Shimon2
1Department of Organic Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100, Rehovot, Israel.
Abstract:
Homogeneous catalytic hydrogenation of esters to alcohols is an industrially important, environmentally benign reaction. While precious metal-based catalysts for this reaction are now well known, only very few catalysts based on first-row metal complexes were reported. Here we present the hydrogenation of esters catalyzed by a complex of earth-abundant manganese. The reaction proceeds under mild conditions and insight into the mechanism is provided based on an NMR study and the synthesis of novel Mn complexes postulated as intermediates.
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