A Review of the Selective Catalytic Reduction of Aromatic Nitro Compounds into Aromatic Amines, Isocyanates, Carbamates, and Ureas Using CO

Although the use of CO as a reductant had been in the past confined to few reactions, its use in organic synthesis, especially in the reductive carbonylation of nitro aromatics and the oxidative carbonylation of aromatic amines, has increased dramatically. Since the discovery of CO-induced reduction of nitro groups, there has been a wide spread increase of interest in the application and mechanistic understanding of this reaction. In a major review published in 1988 it was noted, that in practice no studies of the mechanism of N-carbonylation of aromatic nitro compounds with alcohols leading to carbamates have been carried out. This review clearly shows a major change since that publication. Indeed, metal-catalyzed reductive carbonylation of nitro aromatics using CO as reducing agent has been in the past 10 years the subject of intense investigation both in academia and in the chemical industry. Several articles and reviews have covered the subject up to the late 1980s. The authors will concentrate on more recent literature, but sometimes older data will be used to establish an understanding of these reactions. 127 refs.