Dimerization heteroarene

The SULPHOS-containing rhodium and ruthenium complexes retained their catalytic activity in heteroarene hydrogenation when supported on styrene-divinylbenzene polymer [180] or on silica [181], and showed even higher activity than in homogeneous solution. This effect is attributed to the diminished possibility of dimerization of the active catalytic species to an inactive dimer on the surface of the support relative to the solution phase. The strong hydrogen bonds between the surface OH-groups on silica and the -SO3 substituent in 31 withheld the catalyst in the solid phase despite the rather drastic conditions (100 °C, 30 bar H2). 

Treatment of arenes or heteroarenes with oxidants can lead to the formation of radical cations by SET. These radical cations can dimerize, oligomerize, or react with other radicals present in the reaction mixture deprotonation of the resulting intermediates yields the final products (Scheme 3.18). 

Arenes and heteroarenes which are particularly easy to metalate are tricarbo-nyl( 76-arene)chromium complexes [380, 381], ferrocenes [13, 382, 383], thiophenes [157, 158, 181, 370, 384], furans [370, 385], and most azoles [386-389]. Meta-lated oxazoles, indoles, or furans can, however, be unstable and undergo ring-opening reactions [179, 181, 388]. Pyridines and other six-membered, nitrogen-containing heterocycles can also be lithiated [59, 370, 390-398] or magnesiated [399], but because nucleophilic organometallic compounds readily add to electron-deficient heteroarenes, dimerization can occur, and alkylations of such metalated heteroarenes often require careful optimization of the reaction conditions [368, 400, 401] (Schemes 5.42 and 5.69). 

The photocycloaddition chemistry of pyridines substituted with electron-donor and electron-acceptor groups at the 2- and 3- positions continues to be exploited. The results of irradiation of such pyridines in the presence of 2-cyanofuran have now been described. The yields of the (47r+47r) cycloadducts (29) and (30), the pyridine dimer (31) and the transposition isomer (32) are dependent on the level of methyl substitution on the heteroarene and are given in Scheme 2. Other photocycloadditions to heteroarenes reported within the year include the reactions of benzodithiophene (33) with butadiyne derivatives and dimethyl acetylene dicarboxylate, giving low yields of (34) and (35) respectively, the latter from photorearrangement of the primary adduct (36). The (271+471) photocycloaddition of indoles (37) to cyclohexa-1,3-dienes (38) is sensitized by the aromatic ketones (39), and yields (14-46%) of the exo and endo isomers of the adduct (40) in ratios which are dependent on the substituents on the addends. 

Tetrathiabenzo[l,3-cfirst time by dimerization of thieno[2,3- >]thiophene (142) (92PS73). More recently, it was found that catalytic reduction of 3,4-dibromothieno[2,3-i]thiophene (227) with an excess of activated zinc in the presence of bis(triphenyl-phosphine)nickel(II) chloride and tetraethylammonium iodide afforded only 4,4 -dibromo-3,3-bis(thieno[2,3- )]thiophene) (228) (in a maximum yield of 28%) (89AG1254). However, the reaction in the presence of a larger amount of the nickel catalyst afforded also dipenatlene 225. Optimization of the reaction conditions made it possible to increase the yield of the latter to only 14%. An alternative procedure was employed to transform thienothiophene 227 into trimethylstannyl derivative 229. The reaction of thienothiophene 227 with organotin intermediate 229 in the presence of the palladium triphenylphosphine complex afforded dipentalene 225 (13% yield). Derivatives 226 were prepared by lithiation of... 

The first cross-dehydrogenative intermolecular arylation of a heteroarene with an arene was reported by Fagnou in 2007. N-acetyl-lH-indoles were coupled with simple arenes and selective C3-arylation was obtained (88 89) in the presence of Pd(TFA)2 as catalyst in combination with superstoichiometric Cu(OAc)2 as terminal oxidant (Scheme 40) (2007SCI1172). The N-acetyl group proved to be crucial as no reaction product was achieved with IH-indoles, furthermore N-methyl-lH-indoles gave only self-dimerized products. 

Suzuki [201] reported in 2007 that pyridines, which are electron-deficient heteroarenes, could undergo a homocoupling by dinuclear ruthenium complexes. For example, Cp Ru( a-H)4RuCp and (Cp Ru)2(]i.-PMe2)(]i.-H)( a- ) 7 -C5H 5) [202] promote the dimerization of 4-methoxypyridine to give 4,4 -dimethoxy-2,2 -bipyridine. Although the reaction suffers some limitations such as stoichiometric Ru complexes, high temperature, and narrow substrate scope, this is so far the only report in which simple pyridines can be homocoupled at their C-H bonds. 

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