Bimolecular reduction of carbon dioxide: double synthons for alkynes trifunctionalization

Carbon dioxide reduction, as a sustainable and versatile strategy for the access of chemical fuels, has attracted increasing attention and enormous efforts have been devoted to it in recent years. However, employing carbon dioxide as double synthons via bimolecular reduction remains challenging. Here, by leveraging the bimolecular reduction of carbon dioxide to carbonyl and methyl respectively, we describe a Pd-catalyzed trifunctionalization of alkynes with aryl iodide for the first time and showcase its advantages on the formation of various β-diketones and their application in the constructing of heterocyclic compounds with important biological activity, including pyrimidine, oxazole, pyrazole.