Electrocarboxylation: towards sustainable and efficient synthesis of valuable carboxylic acids

• Roman Matthessen,
• Jan Fransaer,
• Koen Binnemans and
• Dirk E. De Vos

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2014, 10, 2484–2500, doi:10.3762/bjoc.10.260

• formed, containing isomers of 3-pentenoic acid (C5), 3-hexenedioic acid (C6) and 3,7-decadienedioic acid (C10) (Table 1, entries 1–7). The product distribution is among other things influenced by the water and proton content in the reaction system. In a divided cell, in which the anolyte consists of 1

• were conducted in a divided cell, giving only moderate yields [114][115]. A drastic increase in efficiency was obtained by employing sacrificial anodes [116], especially magnesium anodes [117][118]. The cathode material is again of great importance, with silver and platinum giving the highest

• oxidation and reduction of respectively halides and halonium species. Therefore, the use of a membrane or glass frit can be interesting to minimize this effect. However, in a divided cell, the electrocarboxylation of chloroacetonitrile to cyanoacetic acid still appeared to give higher current efficiencies