Overcoming Rigidity: Flexible aliphatic ligand backbones as a standard for the alkoxycarbonylation of alkenes

Abstract

In this study, we present significant advancement for the palladium catalysed alkoxycarbonylation of aliphatic olefins. A comparison of privileged bidentate phosphines with different ligand backbones was conducted. Therefore it can be inferred that L3, with its propyl backbone, is capable of challenging the state of the art systems (L1, L2). This ligand is particularly well suited for ester synthesis from simple alkenes with industrial relevance and challenging alkenes having internal or multiple double bonds. In comparison with the other tested ligands, L3 facilitates more efficient synthesis and scaling up.