J.-B. Peng et al. / Journal of Catalysis 365 (2018) 10–13
11
Fig. 1. Selected examples of bioactive 2,3-disubstituted quinazoline-4(3H)-ones.
using ruthenium or platinum complex as the catalyst, good yields
of the desired products can be achieved under 20–40 bar of CO.
Considering the importance of 2,3-disubstituted quinazolin-4
(3H)-one derivatives, developing general and economic methods
for accessing this class of compounds from simple and readily
available materials are still highly desirable.
Herein, we report a palladium-catalyzed four-component car-
bonylative cyclization reaction for the synthesis of 2,3-
disubstituted quinazolin-4(3H)-ones. The biggest challenge of this
multi-component reaction is that the anilines, generated in situ
from the reduction of nitro compounds [6f,7], would react with
the anhydrides as well to generate amides. The formation of
amides would block the nucleophilic addition to the acyl-
palladium intermediate. Thus, the combination of suitable
components and the control of the reactivity of each step is the
key to this multi-component transformation. In our system, we
employ 2-iodoanilines, nitro compounds and anhydrides as the
starting materials, and Mo(CO) as both the solid CO source [8]
6
and the reductant, 2,3-disubstituted quinazolin-4(3H)-ones were
produced in moderate to good yields.
At the start of our study, 2-iodoaniline (1a), 4-nitrobenzene (2d)
and acetic anhydride (3a) were selected as the model substrates.
To our delight, stirring
nitrobenzene, acetic anhydride and Mo(CO)
Pd(OAc) and BuPAd in 1,4-dioxane at 120 °C, the four-
a
solution of 2-iodoaniline, 4-
6
in the presence of
2
2
component carbonylative cyclization reaction proceeded success-
fully. The desired product 2-methyl-3-(p-tolyl)quinazolin-4(3H)-
one (4d) was obtained in 30% yield (Table 1, entry 1). Amide 5d
was obtained as the major by-product. Subsequently, various phos-
phine ligands were investigated. It was found that electron-rich
and sterically bulky phosphine ligand was benefit for this reaction.
For example, monodentate triarylphosphine ligands showed lower
reactivity and gave lower yields (Table 1, entry 2, also see details in
t
SI). Comparably, when tricyclohexylphosphine and P( Bu)
3
ÁHBF
4
were used as the ligands, the desired product 4d were produced
in 24% and 57% yields, respectively (Table 1, entries 3 and 4).
Bidentate phosphine ligand such as DPPF and Xantphos were also
effective for this reaction (Table 1, entries 5 and 6). The selection
of solvent also played an important role in this reaction. The yield
was improved to 62% when toluene was used as the solvent
Scheme 1. Palladium-catalyzed carbonylative synthesis of quinazolinones.
reaction was performed bellow 100 °C (Table 1, entry 11, see
details in SI). The screening of the bases revealed that Et N was
3
the optimal base, the use of DiPEA and inorganic bases resulted
in lower yields (Table 1, entry 12, also see details in SI). Further-
(Table 1, entry 8), while coordinative solvent such as THF, DMF
more, we examined the amount of Mo(CO)
6
and found that
and MeCN decreased the yields (Table 1, entry 7, also see details
in SI). This might be resulted from the competing coordination of
the solvent to the palladium catalyst. Then, different palladium
1 equivalent of Mo(CO) was essential for effective transformation
(see details in SI). It should be noted that the amount of acid anhy-
dride played a crucial role to the formation of 4d. The best result
6
catalyst precursors were tested and Pd
2
(dba)
3
gave the best result
2
was obtained when 0.8 equivalent Ac O was used (Table 1, entry
(Table 1, entries 9 and 10). The reaction temperature influenced
13). Further increasing the amount of anhydride increase the
the reaction dramatically. A slightly improved yield of 70% was
obtained when increasing the reaction temperature to 140 °C,
however, no carbonylative product was observed when the
formation of 5d and reduced the yields of 4d. Finally, addition of
2
different additives such as H O or molecular sieve failed to further
improve the outcome (Table 1, entry 14, also see details in SI).