Affiliation:
1. Roy and Diana Vagelos Laboratories Penn/Merck Laboratory for High-Throughput Experimentation Department of Chemistry University of Pennsylvania 231 S. 34 Street Philadelphia PA 19104 USA
2. School of Chinese Materia Medica Beijing University of Chinese Medicine 11 Bei San Huan Dong Lu, Chaoyang District Beijing 100029 China
Abstract
AbstractA novel, selective and high‐yielding palladium‐catalyzed carbonylative arylation of a variety of weakly acidic (pKa 25–35 in DMSO) benzylic and heterobenzylic C(sp3)−H bonds with aryl bromides has been achieved. This system is applicable to a range of pro‐nucleophiles for access to sterically and electronically diverse α‐aryl or α,α‐diaryl ketones, which are ubiquitous substructures in biologically active compounds. The Josiphos SL‐J001‐1‐based palladium catalyst was identified as the most efficient and selective, enabling carbonylative arylation with aryl bromides under 1 atm CO to provide the ketone products without the formation of direct coupling byproducts. Additionally, (Josiphos)Pd(CO)2 was identified as the catalyst resting state. A kinetic study suggests that the oxidative addition of aryl bromides is the turnover‐limiting step. Key catalytic intermediates were also isolated.