Secondary alcohols (carbinols) react with primary alcohols in dioxane at 80 °C in the presence of a catalytic amount of RuCl2(PPh3)3 and KOH along with a sacrificial hydrogen acceptor to afford the corresponding coupled secondary alcohols. The reaction is applicable to a wide range of aryl methyl, alkyl methyl, and cyclic carbinols, and with alkyl methyl carbinols, the alkylation took place exclusively at the less-hindered methyl position over β-methylene and -methine.

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A remarkable catalytic effect of antimony(III) chloride is disclosed in palladium(0)-catalyzed conjugate addition of aromatics to ,/3-unsaturated ketones and aldehydes with sodium tetraphenylborate and arylboronic acids in acetic acid at 25 °C. Several other metal chlorides such as AICI3, SnCl4, AsC13, TiCl4, FeCl3, M0CI5, and CeCl3 are also effective in some cases, but SbCl3 is the salt of choice. Two key steps are proposed for this reaction: one is the oxidative addition of a C-B bond to Pd(0) forming an arylpalladium species, and the other is the formation of an antimony enolate derived from the initial coordination of SbCl3 to the carbonyl oxygen of an organopalladium intermediate.

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