Scalable carbon dioxide electroreduction coupled to carbonylation chemistry

Significant efforts have been devoted over the last few years to develop efficient molecular electrocatalysts for the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide, the latter being an industrially important feedstock for the synthesis of bulk and fine chemicals. Whereas these efforts primarily focus on this formal oxygen abstraction step, there are no reports on the exploitation of the chemistry for scalable applications in carbonylation reactions. Here we describe the design and application of an inexpensive and user-friendly electrochemical set-up combined with the two-chamber technology for performing Pd-catalysed carbonylation reactions including amino- and alkoxycarbonylations, as well as carbonylative Sonogashira and Suzuki couplings with near stoichiometric carbon monoxide. The combined two-reaction process allows for milligram to gram synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant compounds. Moreover, this technology can be adapted to the use of atmospheric carbon dioxide.Electroreduction of CO2 to CO is a potential valorisation pathway of carbon dioxide for fine chemicals production. Here, the authors show a user-friendly device that couples CO2 electroreduction with carbonylation chemistry for up to gram scale synthesis of pharmaceuticals even under atmospheric CO2.