Manganese-Catalyzed Selective Upgrading of Ethanol with Methanol into Isobutanol.

Isobutanol serves as an ideal gasoline additive due to its good compatibility with current engine technology, high energy density and high octane number. Herein, we report an efficient and selective Mn-catalyzed upgrading of ethanol with methanol into isobutanol. This is the first example of deoxgenative coupling of lower alcohols to isobutanol by using a homogeneous non-noble-metal catalyst. This transformation could proceed at very low catalyst loading with high turnover number (9233) and up to 96% isobutanol selectivity was also reached.