Hydrogenation of aromatic ketones, aldehydes, and epoxides with hydrogen and Pd(0)EnCat™ 30NP

• Steven V. Ley,
• Angus J. P. Stewart-Liddon,
• David Pears,
• Remedios H. Perni and
• Kevin Treacher

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2006, 2, No. 15, doi:10.1186/1860-5397-2-15

• the case of 4-methoxyacetophenone the same excellent selectivity was achieved and the alcohol was obtained in 100% conversion when using Pd(0)EnCat™ 30NP under our standard conditions (entry 9). It is worthwhile mentioning that, as we expected, transfer hydrogenation conditions did not work so

• conversion of 96% when the catalyst is pre-washed with ethanol (Table 3, entry 2). In this case, transfer hydrogenation conditions using ammonium formate as a source of hydrogen works equally well (entry 4 in Table 3). Finally, different benzylic epoxides were also subjected to the same standard conditions