Angewandte
Chemie
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201205779
Dehydrogenative Coupling
À
Iron-Facilitated Oxidative Dehydrogenative C O Bond Formation by
Propargylic Csp3 H Functionalization**
À
Teng Wang, Wang Zhou, Hang Yin, Jun-An Ma, and Ning Jiao*
À
The formation of carbon–heteroatom bonds is one of the most
attractive and fundamental transformations in organic syn-
propargylic Csp3 H bond activation has not been reported
(Scheme 1c).
thesis.[1] For example, the construction of C O bonds plays an
We began our study by examining the oxidative rear-
rangement reaction of (3-azidoprop-1-ynyl)benzene (1a).[7]
Interestingly, the dehydrogenation product, 1-azido-3-phenyl-
prop-2-ynyl acetate (3aa), was obtained in 43% yield in the
presence of acetic acid 2a [Eq. (1); DCE = dichloroethane,
DDQ = 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone]. In con-
À
important role in producing alcohols, ethers, and esters in the
synthesis of drugs, materials, and natural products.[2] In
À
general, great progress has been made in C O bond
formation from carbon–halide bonds,[1,3] although prefunc-
tionalization of the substrates was often required and halide-
containing by-products were formed during the process
(Scheme 1a). Thus, the alternative strategy involving direct
trast, the reaction of 4, which has a similar structure to 1a but
does not contain an azido group, did not afford the
À
corresponding C O coupling product 5 [Eq. (2)]; this result
indicates that the azido group acted as an assisting group to
À
Scheme 1. The strategy for propargylic Csp3 H functionalization with
carboxylic acids. AG=assisting group.
À
À
C H/O H oxidative coupling has assumed increasing impor-
tance from the perspective of atom economy.[4] In this context,
some couplings have been achieved by employing carboxylic
acids as the O H donators.[5,6] Despite a significant number of
successful examples, most direct Csp3 H/O H oxidative
couplings are still restricted to allylic Csp3 H functionalization
facilitate this Csp3 H functionalization. Subsequently, the
À
À
À
À
yield of 3aa was improved to 49% in a one-pot procedure
when 3-chloro-1-phenyl-1-propyne (4a) was employed as
a precursor of 1a (Table 1, entry 1).
À
by palladium catalysis, as developed by the groups of ꢀker-
mark, Larsson, and White (Scheme 1b).[6] To the best of our
Recently, iron catalysts have attracted a lot of attention in
catalysis owing to their cheap, environmentally benign, and
À
À
knowledge, until now the direct C O bond formation through
insensitive characteristics.[8] Iron-catalyzed oxidative Csp3
H
À
functionalizations for carbon heteroatom bond formations
have been recently disclosed in a limited number of cases.[9]
To our delight, iron salts such as FeCl2 were very effective in
the oxidative coupling (Table 1, entries 2, and 4–6). Attempts
to use other oxidants and solvents were not successful (see the
Supporting Information for more details). Pivalic acid 2b,
instead of 2a, was used in the reaction and produced the
corresponding product 3ab in a similar moderate yield
(Table 1, entry 7). By increasing the amount of 2b used, 3ab
was obtained in 70% yield (Table 1, entry 8). The model
reaction in the presence of 2,2,6,6,-tetramethylpiperidine-N-
oxyl (TEMPO; 2 equiv) or O2 produced the desired 3ab with
low yields (see Table 1, entry 10, and the Supporting Infor-
mation). Attempts to use other catalysts such as manganese
salts (Table 1, entries 12 and 13) resulted in lower yields.
With the optimized conditions established, the substrate
scope was investigated. A diverse range of carboxylic acids
[*] T. Wang, W. Zhou, H. Yin, Dr. N. Jiao
State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs
Peking University, Xue Yuan Rd. 38, Beijing 100191 (China)
E-mail: jiaoning@bjmu.edu.cn
T. Wang, Dr. J.-A. Ma
Department of Chemistry, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072 (China)
Dr. N. Jiao
State Key Laboratory of Organometallic Chemistry
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032 (China)
[**] Financial support from the National Basic Research Program of
China (973 Program 2009CB825300), the National Science Foun-
dation of China (No. 21172006), and Peking University are greatly
appreciated. We thank Zejun Xu in this group for reproducing the
results of 3ac, 3ib, and 6e.
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 10823 –10826
ꢀ 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
10823