Water → 2-Phenylethanol

Participants

Reaction Steps

Then Non-patent Literature 3 suggested a method to use sodium formate as the hydrogen source under a condition of a two-phase reaction system where water is employed as the solvent. In this method, although there is a large increase in the reaction rate and an improvement in the S/C ratio (substrate/catalyst molar ratio) compared to the reaction using formic acid, the optical purity of the alcohol is decreased. For example, a reaction of an acetophenone gives phenylethanol at 97% ee using formic acid, whereas a two-phase reaction system gives phenylethanol at 95% ee.

Provenance & Evidence