Direct Deoxygenative Formylation of Ketones with Titanium.

The introduction of a formyl group at the ketone position is valuable in organic synthesis, and existing methods often rely on multistep procedures and strong bases. Herein, we report a direct deoxygenative formylation of ketones, enabled by a newly developed, cost-effective titanium reagent, (iPrO)2Ti(bpy)Cl2. This readily accessible reagent demonstrates high selectivity for ketone-DMF coupling, effectively suppressing traditional carbonyl coupling between ketones and/or aldehydes. This method provides a base-free alternative for converting diverse ketones into aldehydes.