A novel reduction of polycarboxylic acids into their corresponding alkanes using n-butylsilane or diethylsilane as the reducing agent

A convenient one-pot reaction has been developed for the reduction of polycarboxylic acids on aliphatic and aromatic systems to their corresponding alkanes. The reduction utilises either diethylsilane or n-butylsilane as the reducing agent in the presence of the Lewis acid catalyst tris(pentafluorophenyl)borane.