Decarboxylative and Decarbonylative Borylation of Carboxylic Acids and Their Derivatives†

Comprehensive Summary

Boronate esters are highly valued in synthetic and pharmaceutical industries for their versatility in creating C—C and C—X bonds. They also find applications as catalysts in chemical transformations as well as stimuli-responsive materials in materials science. Some alkyl boronates themselves also show promising applications in medicinal chemistry. In the past few decades, chemists have been devoted to developing new methods or new starting materials for synthesizing boronate esters. Carboxylic acids and their derivatives are privileged chemical entities due to their readily availability or natural abundance, structural diversity, and chemical stability. Hence, the transformation of carboxylic acid and their derivatives to alkyl/aryl boronate esters has seen its fast development in the past decade. This review summarized the state-to-art development of decarboxylative and decarbonylative borylation of carboxylic acids and their derivatives to aryl and alkyl boronate esters.

Key Scientists

The decarboxylative and decarbonylative borylation of carboxylic acids and their derivatives started only in the past decade. In 2016, the decarbonylative borylation of carboxylic esters and amides was reported by Zhuangzhi Shi and Magnus Reuping's groups. Then, in 2017, studies on the decarboxylative borylation of redox-active esters such as NHPI esters started to receive increasing attention by Aggarwal, Baran, Fu, Glorius, and Li's groups. From 2018 to 2023, large numbers of studies on the decarboxylative and decarbonylative borylation of carboxylic acids and their derivatives using transition-metal-catalyst, organo-catalyst, or under photochemical or electrochemical conditions emerged. Due to space limitations, only pictures of scientists who have contributed more than two works in this area are shown herein.