Cooperative redox activation for carbon dioxide conversion

A longstanding challenge in production chemistry is the development of catalytic methods for the transformation of carbon dioxide into useful chemicals. Silane and borane promoted reductions can be fined-tuned to provide a number of C1-building blocks under mild conditions, but these approaches are limited because of the production of stoichiometric waste compounds. Here we report on the conversion of CO2 with diaryldisilanes, which through cooperative redox activation generate carbon monoxide and a diaryldisiloxane that actively participate in a palladium-catalysed carbonylative Hiyama-Denmark coupling for the synthesis of an array of pharmaceutically relevant diarylketones. Thus the disilane reagent not only serves as the oxygen abstracting agent from CO2, but the silicon-containing ‘waste’, produced through oxygen insertion into the Si–Si bond, participates as a reagent for the transmetalation step in the carbonylative coupling. Hence this concept of cooperative redox activation opens up for new avenues in the conversion of CO2.