D. Wang et al. / Journal of Organometallic Chemistry 780 (2015) 30e33
31
was separated with a 33% yield. Encouraged by this result, the ac-
tivity of various solvents was evaluated (Table 1, entries 1e5). The
results showed that DCM:H2O ¼ 1:1 was superior to the others. It
was found that the reaction could be finished with an 81% yield
(Table 1, entry 10). Blank testing showed that the reaction could not
occur without iridium catalyst (Table 1, entry 12).
Having established the optimal conditions ([Cp*IrCl2]2 as the
catalyst, and CH2Cl2:H2O ¼ 1:1 as the solvent), we explored the
scope of the arylation of quinones with arylboronic acids. The re-
sults are summarized in Table 2. Generally, all the quinones were
converted completely to produce the corresponding aryl-
substituted quinones. Substrates having various electron-
donating groups, such as Me-, MeO-, tBu-, iPr- and Et-moieties,
can be tolerated in order to obtain the corresponding products
with good yields. However, for the arylboronic with electron
withdrawing group, the desired product was separated at a low
yield (11,12). Moderate to good isolated yields were obtained
regardless of the steric hindrance of substituent groups (7,8,9 and
16,17,18).
Scheme 1. Synthesis of alkyl substituted quinones.
aryl- and alkyl-substituted quinones was comparatively slow.
Consequently, there are limited methods for the synthesis of
substituted quinones, and these methods are mainly focused on
synthesis of aryl-substituted quinones. Among them, the use of
arylboronic acids as starting materials is a typical example.
Recently, Molina and co-workers showed the coupling reaction of
quinones with arylboronic acids to obtain arylquinones [16a]. Baran
and co-workers contributed significantly to the development of
silver-catalyzed CeC bond-forming reactions by using quinones
with arylboronic and alkyl boronic acids [16b]. Zhang and Yu
demonstrated the iron-mediated direct arylation with arylboronic
acids through a radical transfer pathway [16c]. Very recently, we
reported palladium catalyzed CeS coupling and rhodium catalyzed
CeC coupling of quinones in moderate yields [20]. As a result of our
continuing efforts to search for an alternative method to synthesis
of arylquinone derivatives [20], herein we report a simple, conve-
nient method to achieve the Ir-catalyzed arylation, alkylation of
quinones with both aryl- and alkyl-boronic acids with moderate to
good yields (Scheme 1).
Next, a substrate scope study for the alkyl boronic acids was
carried out. As shown in Table 3, various alkyl boronic acids were
smoothly transformed into the corresponding products. Never-
theless, this methodology produced a low to moderate yield.
ꢀ
Recently, Bermejo-Bescos and co-workers reported that several
arylquinones and their derivatives are effective inhibitors of
b-
secretase [21]. For example, compound 24 was detested with
9.33 uM of Ic50 of BACE1 inhibitory activity (Scheme 2). Herein, a
direct reaction of 10.0 g of naphthoquinone with arylboronic acid
Results and discussion
Table 2
Substrate expansion of quinonesa.
We selected the typical phenylboronic acid as a coupling re-
agent, given the attention to recent achievements in organic syn-
thesis. Based on our continuing efforts and results in the
development of new methodology, we selected [Cp*IrCl2]2 as a
catalyst with which to catalyze the reaction between benzoquinone
and phenylboronic acid (Table 1). Interestingly, the desired product
Entry
Quinone
R
Yield [%]b
Table 1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Benzoquinone
Naphthoquinone
Naphthoquinone
Naphthoquinone
Naphthoquinone
Naphthoquinone
Naphthoquinone
Naphthoquinone
Naphthoquinone
Naphthoquinone
Naphthoquinone
Naphthoquinone
Naphthoquinone
H
p-iPr
p-OMe
p-Ph
p-tBu
p-OEt
o-Me
3,5-Dimethyl
p-Me
m-OMe
p-Br
81 (1)
83 (2)
86 (3)
77 (4)
90 (5)
66 (6)
74 (7)
76 (8)
Screening of reaction conditionsa.
9
75 (9)
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
80 (10)
31 (11)
52 (12)
70 (13)
75 (14)
71 (15)
76 (16)
73 (17)
84 (18)
81 (19)
85 (20)
69 (21)
65 (22)
79 (23)
83 (24)
72 (25)
Entry
Catalyst
Solvent
Yield [%]b
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
[Cp*IrCl2]2
[Cp*IrCl2]2
[Cp*IrCl2]2
[Cp*IrCl2]2
[Cp*IrCl2]2
[Cp*IrCl2]2
[Cp*IrCl2]2
[Cp*IrCl2]2
[Cp*IrCl2]2
[Cp*IrCl2]2
[Cp*IrCl2]2
e
DCE
CH2Cl2
THF
Toluene
33
39
11
16
<5
67
74
58
53
81
78c
<5
18
26
p-I
2-Naphthylc
o-Me
p-Me
Dioxane
m-Me
3,5-Dimethyl
p-OMe
p-iPr
p-tBu
p-OEt
p-Et
H
p-Ph
m-OMe
CH2Cl2:H2O ¼ 3:1
CH2Cl2:H2O ¼ 2:1
CH2Cl2:H2O ¼ 1:2
CH2Cl2:H2O ¼ 1:3
CH2Cl2:H2O ¼ 1:1
CH2Cl2:H2O ¼ 1:1
CH2Cl2:H2O ¼ 1:1
CH2Cl2:H2O ¼ 1:1
CH2Cl2:H2O ¼ 1:1
9
10
11
12
13
14
IrCl3
[Ir(COD)Cl]2
a
a
Conditions: benzoquinone (0.5 mmol, 1.0 equiv.), phenylboronic acid
(1.5 equiv.), [Ir] (5%), 3 mL solvent, 12 h, rt.
Conditions: Quinone (0.5 mmol, 1.0 equiv.), arylboronic acid (1.5 equiv.),
[Cp*IrCl2]2 (5%), 12 h, rt.
b
b
Isolated yields based on benzoquinone.
40 ꢀC was used.
Isolated yields based on quinone.
2-Naphthylboronic acid was used.
c
c