Acceptorless Dehydrogenation of Aliphatics, Amines, and Alcohols with Homogeneous Catalytic Systems

The dehydrogenation of saturated substrates is fundamentally essential for producing value-added unsaturated organic molecules both in academia and industry. In recent years, homogeneously catalyzed acceptorless C-C, C-N, and C-O bond desaturations have attracted increasing attention due to high atom economy, environmentally benign nature, and wide availability of the starting materials. This short review discusses the acceptorless dehydrogenation of aliphatics, alcohols, and amines by homogeneous catalytic systems based on two categories of reaction mechanisms: thermal transition-metal-catalyzed two-electron pathway and photoredox catalyzed or electrochemically driven one-electron pathway.

Automated summary

The dehydrogenation of saturated substrates is important for producing unsaturated organic molecules. Acceptorless C-C, C-N, and C-O bond desaturations have gained attention due to their high atom economy and environmentally benign nature. This review discusses the dehydrogenation of aliphatics, alcohols, and amines using two categories of homogeneous catalytic systems: thermal transition-metal-catalyzed two-electron pathway and photoredox catalyzed or electrochemically driven one-electron pathway.