Functional Group Interconversion: Decarbonylative Borylation of Esters for the Synthesis of Organoboronates

A new and efficient nickel-catalyzed decarbonylative borylation reaction of carboxylic acid esters with bis(pinacolato)-diboron has been developed. This transformation allows access to structurally diverse aryl as well as alkenyl and alkyl boronate esters with high reactivity, broad substrate scope, and excellent functional-group tolerance. Further experiments show that this protocol can be carried out on a gram scale and applied to orthogonal synthetic strategies.