Iron Catalyzed Hydroboration of Aldehydes and Ketones.

We report an operationally convenient room temperature hydroboration of aldehydes and ketones employing Fe(acac)3 as precatalyst. The hydroboration of aldehydes and ketones proceeded efficiently at room temperature to yield, after work up, 1° and 2° alcohols; chemoselective hydroboration of aldehydes over ketones is attained under these conditions. We propose a σ-bond metathesis mechanism in which an Fe-H intermediate is postulated to be a key reactive species.