Advances in transition-metal catalyzed hydroxycarbonylation reactions in aqueous-organic two-phase system

A survey of the literature related to the aqueous organometallic chemistry and catalysis shows that the interest in the carbonylation reactions in two -phase systems has remarkably grown during the five last years and that mos t of carbonylation reactions conducted in homogeneous medium, i.e., the car bonylation of benzyl chloride, bromobenzene, allylic halides, phenethylbrom ide and olefins have been successfully applied under biphasic conditions. W ith allylic halides and benzyl alcohol, the catalytic activities appear eve n much higher than those obtained in homogeneous systems. Nevertheless the lack of stability of palladium-water soluble phosphine based catalyst often observed limits its reuse and constitutes at the present the major drawbac k of these processes. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.