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Updated: Dec 24, 2025

Versatile CO2 Transformations into Complex Products: A One-pot Two-step Strategy
Published on: November 9, 2019
Reductive Coupling of Carbon Dioxide and an Aldehyde Mediated by a Copper(I) Complex toward the Synthesis of
Koichiro Masada1, Shuhei Kusumoto1, Kyoko Nozaki1
1Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.
Abstract:
Copper-mediated reductive coupling between CO2 and an aldehyde to form α-hydroxycarboxylic acid was achieved using silylborane as a reductant. CO2 cleanly inserted into a copper-carbon bond that was formed by the reaction between a silylcopper-NHC complex and an aldehyde. A series of reactions that regenerate the silylcopper complex were developed for the synthesis of an α-hydroxycarboxylic acid. After repeating each step iteratively for two cycles, 0.62 equiv of α-hydroxycarboxylic acid based on the copper complex was obtained.
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