Catalytic isomerization of allylic alcohols in ethanol as ag reen solventw as achieved by using air and moisture stable cobalt (II) complexes in the absence of any additives. Under mild conditions, the cobaltP NP pincer complex substituted with phenyl groups on the phosphorusa toms appeared to be the most active. High rates were obtaineda t1 20 8C, even thought he addition of one equivalent of base increases the speed of the reaction drastically.A lthough some evidencew as obtained supporting ad ehydrogenation-hydrogenation mechanism, it was proven that this is not the major mechanism. Instead, the cobalt hydride complex formed by dehydrogenation of ethanol is capable of double-bond isomerization through alkene insertion-elimination.Isomerization reactions comply with the principles of green chemistry. [1] The catalytic isomerization of allylic alcohols into the saturated carbonyl compounds is an elegant synthetic process that eliminates the more conventional two-step oxidation and reduction pathway. [2] During the last half century, many preciousm etal catalysts for allylic alcoholi somerization, based on Ir,R u, Rh or Pd have been developed. [2, 3] Some of these even work well at ambient temperature. [4] Although noble metals playa ni ndispensable role in catalysis, they are rather expensive, less abundant and generally not used in the last step of drug synthesis. Thus, catalysts based on cheap metals like iron [5] and nickel [6] have been used for the isomerization of allylic alcohols recently.N evertheless, the requirement of either activateds ubstrates [5b] or the need for activation of the catalyst make those systemsl ess desirable. Recently,r eports have appeared on the sole use of base as catalystfor the isomerization of allylic alcohols to the corresponding ketones. [7] To the best of our knowledge,t here is only one report on the use of a cobalt catalyst[ HCo(CO) 4 ]t hat can promote the isomerization of an allylic alcohol to an aldehyde or ak etone, but harsh conditions including the use of toxic carbon monoxide were required to achievel ow conversionsa nd selectivities towards the desired products. [8] Recently,c obalt pincer complexes have been discovered to be effective catalysts [9] for hydrogenation, [10] dehydrogenation, [10g, 11] transfer hydrogenation, [12] hydrosilylations-hydroborations, [13] alkene isomerization [14] and N 2 activation. [15] Hanson and co-workersh ave reportedacationic cobalt(II) alkyl complex, which was appliedf or the hydrogenation of aldehydes, ketones and imines,a sw ell as for the isomerizationo fa lkenes. [16] Furthermore, Liu andc o-workers have recently reported impressive findings about pincerc obalt complexest hat are suitable catalysts for regioselective olefin isomerizationb yu sing ammonia borane as the activation source. [13] Althoughm any catalytic reactions have been performed with pincerc obalt catalysts, isomerization reactions of allylic alcohols with this type of complexes are still unknown.Herein, we report the first cobalt(II) catalyzed isomeri...