- Tunable and Practical Homogeneous Organic Reductants for Cross-Electrophile Coupling
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The syntheses of four new tunable homogeneous organic reductants based on a tetraaminoethylene scaffold are reported. The new reductants have enhanced air stability compared to current homogeneous reductants for metal-mediated reductive transformations, such as cross-electrophile coupling (XEC), and are solids at room temperature. In particular, the weakest reductant is indefinitely stable in air and has a reduction potential of -0.85 V versus ferrocene, which is significantly milder than conventional reductants used in XEC. All of the new reductants can facilitate C(sp2)-C(sp3) Ni-catalyzed XEC reactions and are compatible with complex substrates that are relevant to medicinal chemistry. The reductants span a range of nearly 0.5 V in reduction potential, which allows for control over the rate of electron transfer events in XEC. Specifically, we report a new strategy for controlled alkyl radical generation in Ni-catalyzed C(sp2)-C(sp3) XEC. The key to our approach is to tune the rate of alkyl radical generation from Katritzky salts, which liberate alkyl radicals upon single electron reduction, by varying the redox potentials of the reductant and Katritzky salt utilized in catalysis. Using our method, we perform XEC reactions between benzylic Katritzky salts and aryl halides. The method tolerates a variety of functional groups, some of which are particularly challenging for most XEC transformations. Overall, we expect that our new reductants will both replace conventional homogeneous reductants in current reductive transformations due to their stability and relatively facile synthesis and lead to the development of novel synthetic methods due to their tunability.
- Barth, Emily L.,Charboneau, David J.,Germe, Cameron C.,Hazari, Nilay,Huang, Haotian,Mercado, Brandon Q.,Uehling, Mycah R.,Zultanski, Susan L.
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p. 21024 - 21036
(2021/12/14)
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- Borane-catalyzed C(sp3)-F bond arylation and esterification enabled by transborylation
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The activation and functionalization of carbon- fluorine bonds represent a significant synthetic challenge, given the high thermodynamic barrier to C-F bond cleavage. Stoichiometric hydridoborane-mediated C-F functionalization has recently emerged, but is yet to be rendered catalytic. Herein, the borane-catalyzed coupling of alkyl fluorides with arenes (carbon-carbon bond formation) and carboxylic acids (carbon-oxygen bond formation) has been developed using transborylation reactions to achieve catalytic turnover. Successful C-C and C-O coupling across a variety of structurally and electronically differentiated arenes and carboxylic acids was achieved using 9-borabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane (H-B-9-BBN) as the catalyst and pinacolborane (HBpin), with broad functional group tolerance. Experimental and computational studies suggest a mechanistic dichotomy for the carbon-carbon and carbon-oxygen coupling reactions. B-F transborylation (B-F/B-H metathesis) between F-B-9-BBN and HBpin enabled catalytic turnover for carbon-carbon bond formation, whereas direct exchange between the alkyl fluoride and acyloxyboronic ester (C-F/B-O metathesis) was proposed for carbon-oxygen coupling, where H-B-9-BBN catalyzed the dehydrocoupling of the carboxylic acid with HBpin.
- Willcox, Dominic R.,Nichol, Gary S.,Thomas, Stephen P.
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p. 3190 - 3197
(2021/04/06)
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- 9-Borabicyclo[3.3.l]nonane-induced Friedel-Crafts benzylation of arenes with benzyl fluorides
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Friedel-Crafts benzylation of arenes with benzyl fluorides using 9-borabicyclo[3.3.l]nonane (9-BBN) as a mediator has been developed. This provides a simple and cheap route to the activation of C-F bonds to synthesize 1,1-diarylmethanes in good to excellent yields (up to 98%) under mild conditions. Functional group tolerance and the mechanism are considered.
- Guo, Jing,Bamford, Karlee L.,Stephan, Douglas W.
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p. 5258 - 5261
(2019/06/07)
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