Guerbet-type reaction

The first case involves the reaction between metal halides and alcohols. After the coordination of the alcohol to the metal center, elimination of an alkyl halide RX leads to the formation of a metal hydroxyl species (Scheme 2.1a). The second example (Scheme 2.1b) follows a Guerbet-type reaction, in which the alkoxide ligand undergoes a C—C bond formation in p-position to another alcohol... 

Scheme 2.1 Schematic of nonhydrolytic hydroxylation reactions, (a) Reaction of metal halides with alcohols coordination of the alcohol to the metal center, followed by elimination of an alkyl halide RX. (b) Guerbet-type reaction of a metal isopropoxide with benzyl...

Furthermore, Jia and co-worker recently reported the Ru-catalyzed Guerbet-type p-alkylation of primary and secondary alcohols [184]. In a representative example of this reaction, 1-phenyl ethanol (1.0 mmol) was reacted with benzyl alcohol (2.0 mmol) in the presence of RuCl2(PPh3)2(2-NH2CH2Py) (2-NH2CH2Py = 2-aminomethyl pyridine) (1 mol%) combined with f-BuOK in toluene at 105 °C to give the corresponding P-alkylated product in quantitative yield (Scheme 34). 

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