A chemical reaction that introduces a carbonyl group (C=O) into a molecule, widely used in manufacturing plastics, medicines, and other chemicals.
From carbonyl (CO functional group, from Latin carbo coal + oxygen) plus -ation (process suffix). Emerged in early 20th-century organic chemistry as industrial processes scaled up.
Carbonylation reactions power trillions of dollars of chemical industry annually, but most still use toxic carbon monoxide gas—and discovering catalysts that let us skip the CO is an active frontier in green chemistry where even small improvements save massive amounts of energy.
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