Acceptorless Alcohol Dehydrogenation: A Mechanistic Perspective

Alcohols are unreactive and require strong inorganic oxidants to convert to synthetically useful carbonyl compounds. Acceptorless dehydrogenation of alcohol is a green and atom-economic alternative, which provides aldehyde (or ketone) without the use of sacrificial acceptor molecules and the side product is molecular hydrogen. This review provides a brief overview of the initial work followed by recent advances in the field of acceptorless alcohol dehydrogenation. Catalysts that employ metal-ligand cooperation for alcohol activation and dehydrogenation are covered in details. Different mechanisms are examined and clear advantages associated with a bifunctional pathway are outlined. Mechanistic understanding at the molecular level helps to develop new generation dehydrogenation catalysts. Recent works from our group on this area along with literature reports are discussed.