Photochemical synthesis of biaryls

Photochemical synthesis of biaryls have been intensively employed in the synthesis of natural products due to generally mild conditions, relatively high efficacy and simple methodology. 

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The aryl-aryl bond formation can be realized in the photochemical manner by irradiation of aryl iodides or bromides such as la which, by photo-dehydrohalogenation, give biaryls lla [90-92], Scheme 47. However, the photochemical synthesis of biaryls have also been performed as an intermolecular process [93]. The reactions are usually performed by irradiation of the given substrate in benzene or cyclohexane solution in the quartz-glass vessel, under the UV-light of... 

An elegant photochemical formation of an aryl-carbon bond through a PET mechanism was recently reported in the total synthesis of the potent antimitotic polycycle (-)-diazonamide A. The reaction was initiated by intramolecular electron transfer between the indole chromophore and the adjacent bromoarene (Scheme 2.10). Thus, compound 21 was treated with an aqueous-acetonitrile solution of LiOH and the resulting lithium phenoxide solution was degassed and photolyzed (Rayonet, 300 nm) to yield biaryl 22 (as a single atropodiastereomer) in a good yield. A radical-radical anion pair (23) was formed upon excitation, and... 

An intramolecular SrnI reaction was used as key step in the synthesis of the alkaloid 0-demethyleupoularamine 3. The intermediately formed SrnI product is readily transformed by photochemical oxidative biaryl formation and subsequent methylation to the target compound 3 in good yield (Equation 13.7) [23]. The SrnI cyclization of l-(2-bromobenzyl)-l,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinolin-7-ol derivatives 4 was recently applied to the synthesis of aporphine alkaloids 5 (Equation 13.8) [24] and, by using the same approach, homoaporphine alkaloids can also be synthesized. 

When Pschorr reported more than a century ago on the first intramolecular homolytic aromatic substitution [25], he showed that biaryls could be readily prepared by intramolecular homolytic aromatic substitution using reactive aryl radicals and arenes as radical acceptors. The aryl radicals were generated by treatment of arene-diazonium salts with copper(l) ions. Today, this reaction and related processes are referred to as Pschorr reactions. It was later found that radical biaryl synthesis could be conducted without copper salts by photochemical or thermal generation of the aryl radical from the corresponding diazonium salt [26], Moreover, the reduction of aryl diazonium salts offers another route to generate reactive aryl radicals. Hence, electrochemistry [27], titanium(lll) ions [28], Fe(II)-salts [29], tet-rathiafulvalene [30] and iodide [31] have each been used successfully for the reduction of diazonium salts to generate the corresponding aryl radicals [32]. As an example, the iodide-induced cycUzation of diazonium salt 6 to phenanthrene derivative 7 is presented in Scheme 13.3 [31]. For further information on the... 

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