Palladium® salts natural products synthesis

It has also been found that highly active catalysts can be prepared in situ by reducing a platinum, palladium, or rhodium salt with sodium borohydride in the presence of a carbon support. Similar reductions of nickel salts produce colloidal nickel-boron, which is highly selective toward olefins of different structural types. The normal order of reactivity—i.e., terminal > disubstituted > trisubstituted—is observed, but the reactivity spread is sufficiently large that selective hydrogenation of polyenes is possible, as illustrated by a step in a synthesis of the natural product... 

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