Nickel- and Brønsted Acid-Catalyzed Redox-Neutral Coupling of 1,3-Dienes and Aldehydes for Synthesis of Dienols

Dienols are important structural motifs in organic molecules, but most of the traditional synthetic methods required multistep prefunctionalization of substrates, leading to stoichiometric waste and low atom economy. Herein, we report a redox-neutral coupling of simple 1,3-dienes and aldehydes via nickel and Bronsted acid dual catalysis, providing a highly atom-economical and by-product-free route to various dienols with up to 94% yield and up to 50:1 EE/EZ ratio. The use of 2-isopropoxyphenol as a Bronsted acid co-catalyst was critical to the reactivity and selectivity.