Abstract
Herein we report the iron-catalyzed β-C(sp(3))-methylation of primary alcohols using methanol as a C1 building block. This borrowing hydrogen approach employs a well-defined bench-stable (cyclopentadienone)iron(0) carbonyl complex as precatalyst (5 mol %) and enables a diverse selection of substituted 2-arylethanols to undergo β-C(sp(3))-methylation in good isolated yields (24 examples, 65% average yield).