Organozinc compounds, coupling with halides

The past decade has seen extensive development of cross-coupling reactions of organozinc compounds and organic halides catalyzed by nickel or palladium catalysts. Although nickel-based catalysts are more reactive with respect to the organic halide partner, the number of failures with these catalysts and the greater selectivity realized with palladium-based catalysts have resulted in the almost exclusive use of the latter group of catalysts for these reactions. 

Organozinc compounds are also useful in palladium-catalyzed coupling with aryl and alkenyl halides. Procedures for arylzinc,156 alkenylzinc,157 and alkylzinc158 reagents have been developed. The ferrocenyldiphosphine dppf has been found to be an especially good Pd ligand for these reactions.159... 

Some synthetically important allenylmetallics, such as allenylzinc and allenylin-dium reagents, are prepared from allenylpalladium intermediates. These reactions are discussed in appropriate sections of this chapter. This section covers the reactions of allenylpalladium compounds without further transmetallation. Allenylpalladium complexes can be prepared from propargylic halides, acetates, carbonates, mesylates, alcohols and certain alkynes [83-87], The allenylpalladium compound prepared from 3-chloro-3-methyl-l-butyne has been isolated and characterized spectroscopically (Eq. 9.106) [83], It was found to couple with organozinc chlorides to produce homologated allenes quantitatively (Eq. 9.107). 

In addition, the organozinc compound obtained from ethyl 4-bromobutanoate reacts under similar conditions to those described previously, with 4-bromoacetophenone, to give the corresponding product in good yield15. The preparation of organozinc compounds and their cross-coupling with aryl halides can be carried out in one step (equation 7). 

The cross-coupling of organozinc compounds has been accomplished using a number of metal enolate complexes, namely Rh(acac)(H2C=CH2)2 (6) , Co(acac)3 (30) °, Ni(acac)2 (47) , Li(acac) (107) and Cr(acac)3 (108) . For instance, complex 47 proved to be an extremely effective catalyst system for the Negishi cross-coupling of arylzinc halides (109) with aryl (110), heteroaryl and alkenyl halides, triflates and nonaflates to give the corresponding biaryl compounds (111) (equation 30). The solvent played an important role in these reactions and optimal conditions were found with 8 1 mixtures of THF and A-ethylpyrrolidinone (nep). Only 0.05 mol% of the nickel complex... 

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