Heck protocol, alkyne arylation

In 1975, three different protocols were available in the literature, each describing the synthesis of internal alkynes. Cassar described palladium- or nickel-mediated reactions between aryl or vinyl halides and alkynes complexes with phosphine as ligands in the presence of NaOMe [1]. As a second protocol, Heck pubhshed a variation of the Mizoroki-Heck couplings, in which the olefins were replaced by alkynes and coupled with (hetero)aryl, as weU as alkenyl bromides or iodides at 100 °C in the presence of a basic amine [2]. More than a decade earUer, Stephens and Castro had described the details of a palladium-free coupling of aryl iodides with cuprous acetylides in refluxing pyridine [3]. 

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