carbonylation

In chemistry, carbonylation refers to reactions that introduce carbon monoxide (CO) into organic and inorganic substrates. Carbon monoxide is abundantly available and conveniently reactive, so it is widely used as a reactant in industrial chemistry. The term carbonylation also refers to oxidation of protein side chains.

==Organic chemistry== Several industrially useful organic chemicals are prepared by carbonylations, which can be highly selective reactions. Carbonylations produce organic carbonyls, i.e., compounds that contain the functional group such as aldehydes (), carboxylic acids () and esters (). Carbonylations are the basis of many types of reactions, including hydroformylation and Reppe reactions. These reactions require metal catalysts, which bind and activate the CO. These processes involve transition metal acyl complexes as intermediates. Much of this theme was developed by Walter Reppe.