Chelation-accelerated sequential decarbonylation of formate and alkoxycarbonylation of aryl halides using a combined Ru and Pd catalyst

An efficient cooperative catalyst system for the coupling of a wide range of organic electrophiles with chelated formate is reported to afford aryl and alkenyl esters by the simultaneous employment of Ru and Pd catalyst, in which ruthenium first promotes chelation-accelerated decarbonylation of formate to release CO and carbinol that are presumed to be transferred, still chelated to Ru, into Pd catalyst, which catalyzes alkoxycarbonylation of the organic electrophiles.