Angewandte
Chemie
We focused our attention on chelating bisphosphine ligands as
a result of their successful application in rhodium-catalyzed
conjugate addition reactions of boronic acids.[2] For the
benchmark carboxylate group, we chose 2,6-difluorobenzoate
for the following reasons: 1) the favorable combination of an
electron-deficient fluorinated aryl group and an electron-rich
RhI center should facilitate decarboxylation from a thermo-
dynamic viewpoint (product stabilization);[15] 2) substitution
at both ortho positions would prevent the undesirable ortho
characterized by spectroscopic methods, and both structures
À
C H activation pathway; 3) the moderate steric hindrance of
ortho fluoro substituents would probably promote decarbox-
were determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction
(Figure 1).[19] In the solid state, the chelating carboxylato
ligand forced 1 into a significantly distorted square-planar
geometry, as also observed for the related structure of [Rh(k2-
O2CCH3)(PiPr3)2].[19a] Complex 6 adopts a near-square-planar
geometry, with apparent p–p stacking between the difluoro-
phenyl plane and a phenyl group on the adjacent phosphorus
atom (centroid distance: ca. 3.53 ꢀ; see the Supporting
Information).[20]
ylation through ground-state destabilization, but should not
significantly hinder subsequent C C bond formation through
olefin insertion. Furthermore, fluorinated aryl groups are
themselves highly useful building blocks in biomedical
studies.[16]
À
The highest reactivity was observed for a bidentate
rhodium(I) carboxylato complex, [(biphep)Rh{k2-O2C(2,6-
F2C6H3)}] (1; biphep = 2,2’-bis(diphenylphosphanyl)-1,1’-
biphenyl), which was prepared from 2,6-difluorobenzoic
acid (2a) and [{(cod)Rh(OH)}2] [Eq. (1)].[17] The treatment
of 1 with excess n-butyl acrylate (3a, 6 equiv) in dry toluene at
1208C gave a mixture of the conjugate-addition product 4a
and a Heck–Mizoroki product 5 (1:6) in 69% combined yield
[Eq. (2)]. In contrast, when the same mixture of 1 and 3a was
heated in a 10:1 mixture of toluene and H2O, 4a was formed
selectively in near-quantitative yield [Eq. (3)]. These results
suggested that the decarboxylation of 1 did occur to generate
an aryl rhodium(I) intermediate; subsequent olefin insertion
into the rhodium–aryl linkage, followed by competitive
hydrolysis/b-hydride elimination, generated 4a or 5, respec-
tively (see Scheme 1).[2c,d]
Figure 1. ORTEP diagrams of [Rh(biphep){k2-O2C(2,6-F2C6H3)}] (1, left)
and [Rh(biphep)(2,6-F2C6H3)(pyridine)] (6, right). Thermal ellipsoids
are set at the 30% probability level; hydrogen atoms are omitted for
clarity.
To further elucidate the decarboxylation step, we sought
to identify the rhodium(I) aryl intermediate before the olefin-
insertion step. The thermal decomposition of 1 in the absence
The stoichiometric investigation guided our efforts to
develop a catalytic process. Some key results are shown in
Table 1. The catalytic decarboxylative conjugate addition of
2a (1 equiv) to 3a (1.5 equiv) proceeded smoothly at 1208C
with
a catalyst system composed of [{(cod)Rh(OH)}2]
(1.5 mol%), the biphep ligand (3 mol%), and NaOH as an
additive (1.0 equiv); the desired conjugate-addition product
4a was formed in near-quantitative yield (Table 1, entry 1).
Notably, this reaction occurred in a common solvent system
composed of toluene and water (10:1), whereas polar
solvents, such as 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone, dimethyl sulfox-
ide, and N,N-dimethylformamide, which are used in typical
palladium-catalyzed decarboxylative Heck–Mizoroki reac-
tions and cross-coupling reactions were not suitable.[4] The
less expensive racemic binap ligand gave equally good results
(Table 1, entry 2), whereas the use of other phosphine ligands
led to a lower yield and lower selectivity for 4a over the
Heck–Mizoroki by-product 5 (Table 1, entries 4–12). As
expected, the aqueous reaction medium was beneficial for
optimal yield and selectivity (see Table 1, entry 14). The
choice of NaOH as an inorganic additive was also critical for
satisfactory results, although its role remains unclear at this
stage (Table 1, entries 15–20).[21] Interestingly, the ligand
(R,R)-diop[22] promoted the selective formation of 5 over 4a
of an olefin substrate failed to generate detectable organo-
rhodium complexes, presumably as a result of the instability
of the proposed [(biphep)Rh(2,6-F2C6H3)] complex as the
direct decarboxylation product. However, when 1 was heated
at 808C with pyridine, clean formation of a discrete aryl
rhodium(I) complex, [(biphep)Rh(2,6-F2C6H3)(pyridine)]
(6), was observed [Eq. (4)].[18] Complexes 1 and 6 were
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009, 48, 6726 –6730
ꢀ 2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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