Abstract:
Hydrogenation is one of the most fundamental transformations in chemistry, and
its applications range from the chemical industry to laboratory scale organic synthesis
[1]. The formal de nition of hydrogenation includes the addition of hydrogens
across an unsaturated chemical bond, usually in the presence of a catalyst. There
are two strategies to e ect hydrogenation; direct hydrogenation (DH) and transfer
hydrogenation (TH). The latter requires a non-H2 hydrogen source, often organic
molecules, acting as the hydrogen donors. Some of the popular academic examples of
TH include Birch reduction of arenes with sodium in ammonia [2], Meerwein-Ponndorf-
Verley (MPV) reduction with sacri cial alcohols as hydrogen donors [3], hydride
transfer from Hantszch ester [4], etc. Nevertheless, with respect to the reducing
agents, all these reactions are stoichiometric and hence leads to the formation of an
equivalent amount of waste. This renders such hydrogenations relatively ine ective
for industrial applications. DHs, which utilize H2 gas as the source of hydrogen, are
comparatively more economical and atom-e cient. Since all investigated catalytic
reactions in this thesis belong to DH, we will restrict our discussion to this particular
class of hydrogenation.
