Highly chemo/regioselective alkoxycarbonylation of terminal allenes catalyzed by Ru/N-ligand system

The Ru-catalyzed highly selective alkoxycarbonylation of allenes with aliphatic alcohols (also as solvent) allow to produce useful α , β -unsaturated esters in good to excellent yields at 70 °C. Efficient regioselectivity could be controlled in the presence of N-ligands while the P-ligands had no influence on the conversion of substrates and the chemo/regioselectivity of target products. By involving N-ligand 4,7-dimethyl-1,10-phenanthroline in the catalytic system, α , β -unsaturated esters were obtained with high conversion and chemo/regioselectivity (conversion up to 99%, chemical selectivity up to 99%, regioselectivity of branched ester/linear ester up to 89/11). Graphical abstract