Transition metal-catalysis in interrupted borrowing hydrogen strategy

In recent times, the transition metal-catalyzed borrowing hydrogen (BH) and interrupted borrowing hydrogen (IBH) strategies have attracted much attention and represent atom- and step-economic processes to access diverse building blocks via various C-C and C-heteroatom bond-forming reactions. The advantages of these approaches include (i) use of feedstock chemicals, (ii) high atom economy, (iii) no pre-activation of the substrates, and (iv) producing water as the only by-product. In this context, several synthetic strategies have been developed in this regime for the past few decades. To the best of our knowledge, no review article describes the important concepts of interrupted borrowing hydrogen (IBH) reaction. This review article highlights the recent advances in the IBH strategy and its application in sustainable chemical synthesis, particularly C-C bond formation using methanol as a C1 source, synthesis of 3,3′-bisindolylmethanes (3,3′-BIMs), α-branched ketones/diketones, and regioselective alkylation of N-heterocycles. This review article highlights the recent advances of transition-metal-catalyzed interrupted borrowing hydrogen (IBH) catalysis and its applications in the sustainable and affordable chemical synthesis using alcohols as C1 feedstocks.