Palladium-catalyzed acetic acid synthesis from methane and carbon dioxide

Alkane activation/functionalization is one of the most challenging problems in modern chemistry. We have reported a new arylation reaction of olefins by palladium catalysts to give aromatic-substituted olefins in one-step which is introduced as the Fujiwara arylation in the recent book [1]. We extended this sp2 C-H bond activation reaction to alkanes and found that small alkanes such as methane, ethane, and propane could react with CO to give the corresponding carboxylic acids [2], and that more interestingly CO can be substituted with CO2 [3].