Catalytic alkane C-H borylation + retro-hydroboration: towards a lower energy route to convert alkanes into terminal olefins

烷烃升级是一个主要的工业目标(生物质、废物和化石燃料衍生的烷烃)，可以极大地提高化学工业的效率。在这个概念验证研究的第一阶段，我们的目标是证明地球上丰富的亲电金属催化剂可以激活氢硼烷来执行SP3C-H硼化反应生成烷基硼烷。虽然烷基硼烷本身作为多种合成中间体很有用，但本项目第二阶段将着眼于烷基硼烷的一个具体应用--通过脱氢硼烷反应将烷基硼烷热转化为烯烃(这是一种在第一阶段再生氢化硼烷以供潜在使用的过程)。成功将确立将烷烃转化为端烯的低能量路线(相对于目前大规模进行的商业化的直接烷烃脱氢)的可行性，这在化学工业中是一项重大的、目前尚未解决的挑战。

Alkane upgrading is a major industrial goal (for biomass, waste and fossil fuel derived alkanes) that can drastically enhance the efficiency of the chemical industry. In phase 1 of this proof of concept study we aim to demonstrate that Earth-abundant electrophilic metal catalysts can activate hydroboranes to perform sp3 C-H borylation to generate alkylboranes. While alkylboranes are useful in their own right as versatile synthetic intermediates, phase 2 of this project will look at one specific application of alkylboranes - the thermal conversion of alkylboranes to alkenes by dehydroboration (a process that regenerates the hydroborane for potential use in phase 1). Success would establish the feasibility of a low energy route (relative to commercialised direct alkane dehydrogenation currently performed on a large scale) to convert alkanes to terminal alkenes which is a significant and currently unmet challenge in the chemical industry.