Highly chemoselective and regiospecific Rh-catalyzed single-step hydroformylation of biomass derived (R)-carvone

• Use of the bio-renewable olefin , (R)-carvone makes the hydroformylation process sustainable. • The system is extremely sensitive to changes in the reaction conditions which necessitates rigorous optimizations. • Employment of Rh/Xantphos catalytic system leads to an aldehyde favoring approach. • Selectivity tuning gives 99 % conversion, 95 % yield and 96 % chemoselectivity toward the desired aldehyde under optimized conditions. • The formation of only the linear aldehyde makes the system regiospecific. An efficient protocol for the rhodium catalyzed single-step hydroformylation of renewable natural olefin , (R)-carvone was developed, obtaining the corresponding linear aldehyde as the major product. The system was found to be highly sensitive to even slight variations in the reaction conditions, which had a tendency to complicate itself through the formation of numerous byproducts; nonetheless, high conversion (99 %), yield (95 %) and chemoselectivity (96 %) toward the desired aldehyde were accomplished under the optimized conditions. Moreover, this process proved to be regiospecific as no branched aldehyde was formed. These results were achieved by a careful tuning of different parameters such as temperature, pressure, reaction time, catalyst to ligand ratio, catalyst to substrate ratio and types of catalyst precursors, ligands and solvents.