Cross-coupling chemistry

Modem cross coupling chemistry is heavily dominated by the use of palladium and nickel complexes as the catalysts, which show an impressively wide scope and an excellent compatibility with many functional groups.2 This favorable application profile usually overcompensates the disadvantages resulting from the high price of the palladium precursors, the concerns about the toxicity of nickel salts, the need for ancillary ligands to render the complexes sufficiently active and stable, and the extended reaction times that are necessary in certain cases. 

These processes have flourished, mainly due to their selectivity and versatility, to the point where cross-coupling chemistry is often the initial thinking of organic chemists in synthetic and retro-synthetic approaches [2]. In fact, nowadays it is difficult to find a contribution in fine chemical or natural product synthesis where these molecular assembly tools are not employed. This is often due to the simple preparation and handling of the reaction partners as well as their relative compatibility with several functional groups. 

The ideal ligand for the cross-coupling reactions should satisfy the requirements of all stages of the catalytic cycle. In practice this is unlikely, as these requirements are not parallel. A careful compromise between various factors is necessary for any particular realization of cross-coupling chemistry. The path of reasoning should be similar for both Pd- and Ni-catalyzed processes however, since very little information is available concerning Ni catalysis, only Pd catalysis will be discussed here. 

Complexes ligated by alkylphosphines had been used rarely as catalysts in cross-coupling chemistry, but several studies suggested that they could catalyze the amination of aryl halides with higher selectivity and activity than catalysts of arylphosphines. Steric hindrance promotes reductive elimination at the expense of /3-hydrogen elimination.54 Therefore, reactions of primary amines and, in... 

Scheme 6.19 Scaffold decoration of heterocycles using Suzuki cross-coupling chemistry.

Scheme 6.38 Scaffold decoration and modification of heterocycles using Stille cross-coupling chemistry.

Louie J, Hartwig JF (1996) A route to PdO from Pdll metallacycles in amination and cross-coupling chemistry. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 35 2359-2361 Mucalo MR, Coouey RP (1989) F.T.I.R. spectra of carbon monoxide adsorbed on platinum sols. J Chem Soc Chem Commun 94—95 Munoz MP, Martin-Matute B, Fernandez-Rivas C, Cardenas DJ, Echavarren AM (2001) Palladacycles as precatalysts in Heck and cross-coupling reactions. Adv Synth Catal 343 338-342... 

Denmark pursued intramolecular alkyne hydrosilylation in the context of generating stereodefined vinylsilanes for cross-coupling chemistry (Scheme 21). Cyclic siloxanes from platinum-catalyzed hydrosilylation were used in a coupling reaction, affording good yields with a variety of aryl iodides.84 The three steps are mutually compatible and can be carried out as a one-pot hydro-arylation of propargylic alcohols. The isomeric trans-exo-dig addition was also achieved. Despite the fact that many catalysts for terminal alkyne hydrosilylation react poorly with internal alkynes, the group found that ruthenium(n) chloride arene complexes—which provide complete selectivity for trans-... 

Several pyrimidine boronic acid derivatives are now commercially available, and numerous other examples can be found in the literature, as their use in Suzuki and related cross-coupling chemistry is now well established . 

It should be fairly evident that more than 10 years of metal-catalyzed cross-coupling chemistry cannot be summarized in the limited number of pages allocated to this review. The amount of activity and literature in this area is still rapidly growing One would be hard pressed to open any chemistry journal and not find at least one cross-coupling reactions, used in one form or other. We have attempted to include the most recent reviews and references. 

The transition metal catalyzed carbon-carbon bond formation between organomagnesium reagents and aryl (vinyl) halides has been one of the pioneering entries into cross-coupling chemistry. The reaction has been widely utilized since than in azine chemistry,22 with the limitation that the functional group tolerance of Grignard reagents is only moderate. Here only some of the more recent developments will be mentioned. 

The benzene derivatives containing the fluorinated sulfone have been prepared either by nucleophilic substitution of the 4-fluorophenyl derivative (e.g. 1) or by starting with the appropriately substituted sodium thiophenoxide and reacting with perfluoroalkyl iodide follow by oxidation with either MCPBA or chromium oxide (12. li.) The biphenyl derivatives have been prepared by palladium catalyzed cross coupling chemistry of the 4-bromophenyl derivative (e.g. 2) with substituted phenyl boronic acid (yields 37-84%) (JLH, .). Compound 16 has been prepared by palladium catalyzed cross coupling of (4-bromophenyl)perfluorohexyl sulfone with vinyl anisole in 37 % yield (JJL). The vinyl sulfones, 7 and 9, have been prepared by condensation of CH3S02Rf (JJL) with the appropriate aldehyde (yields 70,and 73%) following a literature procedure (1 ). Yields were not optimized. 

This is in line with the general tendency in cross-coupling chemistry that alkenyl halides are more reactive than aryl halides. 

Sulfonamide DoM in conjunction with cross coupling chemistry, 43 —> 44 —> 45 (Scheme 10) is instructive for double DoM sequences followed by further advantage of an introduced DMG [34]. 

A cross-coupling reaction can be partially defined by equation (1), where Nu is a carbon (or heteroatom) nucleophile see Nucleophile), R X is an electrophilic substrate, X is a halogen or other appropriate leaving group, and M is a metal or metalloid. At first glance, it would appear that simple nucleophihc substitution reactions should fall under this definition. However, what makes the cross-coupling chemistry special is its ability to perform transformations that cannot be accomplished with simple substitution chemistry. 

---