Journal of Organic Chemistry 2005-10-14

Vanadium-catalyzed pinacol coupling reaction in water.

Xiaoliang Xu, Toshikazu Hirao

Index: J. Org. Chem. 70(21) , 8594-8596, (2005)

Full Text: HTML

Abstract

A catalytic pinacol coupling using water as a solvent was performed by a catalytic amount of vanadium(III) chloride and metallic Al as a co-reductant. A combination forms a binary catalytic system, being in sharp contrast to the reaction in organic solvent, which requires a chlorosilane as an additive. Various aromatic aldehydes underwent the reductive coupling to give the corresponding 1,2-diols in moderate to good yields.