Catalytic Carbonylation Methods without the Direct Use of Carbon Monoxide

Carbonylation chemistry (carbon monoxide chemistry) has been the subject of extensive research in labo-scale organic syntheses as well as industrial processes, since it provides a powerful tool for the direct synthesis of a wide variety of carbonyl-containing compounds. However, the methods suffer from major disadvantages, including the high toxicity of carbon monoxide and difficulties in handling this gaseous reagent. The review describes innovative strategies to solve these drawbacks. The strategies should provide many synthetic organic chemists with experimentally simple and safe tools for carbonylation.