Chloroform as a CO surrogate: applications and recent developments

The carbonyl moiety is one of the indispensable sub-units in organic synthesis with significant applications in medicinal as well as materials chemistry. Hence the insertion of a carbonyl group via simple and highly efficient routes has been one of the most challenging tasks for organic chemists. Though the direct utilisation of CO gas in carbonylation is the fundamental procedure for the construction of carbonyl compounds, it has certain drawbacks due to its toxic and explosive nature. As a result, the need for cheap and efficient CO surrogates has gained much attention nowadays by which CO gas can be easily generated in situ or ex situ. In this review we discuss the advantages of chloroform as CO surrogate and have surveyed recent carbonylation reactions where chloroform has been used as CO source.