Palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction of aryldioxaborolane with 2-bromo-N,N-dimethylacetamide

Article abstract of DOI:10.1016/S0040-4039(03)00066-2

A Suzuki-type cross-coupling of aryldioxaborolane with 2-bromo-N,N-dimethylacetamide in the presence of a catalytic amount of tricyclohexylphosphine as the ligand and hydroquinone as the free-radical scavenger has been demonstrated as a convenient and simple way for the synthesis of α-arylacetamide.

Full text of DOI:10.1016/S0040-4039(03)00066-2

TETRAHEDRON
LETTERS
Pergamon
Tetrahedron Letters 44 (2003) 1587–1590
Palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction of aryldioxaborolane
with 2-bromo-N,N-dimethylacetamide
Ting-Yi Lu,a Cuihua Xueb and Fen-Tair Luob,*
aDepartment of Chemistry and Biochemistry, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi, Taiwan 621
bInstitute of Chemistry, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei, Taiwan 115
Received 4 December 2002; revised 26 December 2002; accepted 27 December 2002
Abstract—A Suzuki-type cross-coupling of aryldioxaborolane with 2-bromo-N,N-dimethylacetamide in the presence of a catalytic
amount of tricyclohexylphosphine as the ligand and hydroquinone as the free-radical scavenger has been demonstrated as a
convenient and simple way for the synthesis of a-arylacetamide. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
a-Arylamides have potential medical and agricultural
applications,1 but few general methods for their prepa-
ration have been reported. Classical methods for the
a-arylation of amide have involved Friedel–Crafts or
photostimulated reaction of amide enolate with
haloarenes via SRN1 mechanism.2 Recently, inter- and
intramolecular palladium-catalyzed a-arylation of N,N-
dimethylamides by using aryl halides and silylamide
base have been reported by Hartwig’s group.3 It is
known that the cross-coupling reactions of phenyl-
boronic acid with aryl bromide in the presence of
palladium catalysts and base, Suzuki reaction,4 have
many attractive features, such as good yields, mild
conditions, tolerant to several functional groups and
the ability to remain unaffected in the presence of
water. However, despite the wide variety of organic
halides which mediate these types of cross-coupling
reactions, examples of the synthesis of a-arylacetamide
via Suzuki-type reaction have very limited scope.5 In
view of the limited number of methodologies for the
synthesis of a-arylamides, herein, we wish to report the
cross-coupling of aryldioxaborolane and 2-bromo-N,N-
dimethylacetamide in the presence of Pd(dba)2 catalyst,
a catalytic amount of tricyclohexylphosphine as the
ligand, and 3.4 equiv. of K3PO4 as the base in THF at
70°C could give a-aryl-N,N-dimethylacetamide in mod-
erate to good yields.
Initially, we started to use phenylboronic acid to couple
with 2-bromo-N,N-dimethylacetamide in the presence
of 3 mol% of Pd(PPh3)4 and 3% of Cu2O as the
co-catalyst5a and 3.4 equiv. of K2CO3 as the base in
toluene at 80°C for 12 h. However, we only obtained
very low yield of the cross-coupling product along with
35% of biphenyl. Attempts to use K3PO4 or Cs2CO3 as
the base did not get any improvement in the yields.
Using 4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-2-phenyl-1,3,2-dioxaborolane
as the substrate did not improve the yields. However,
when we used 2-phenyl-1,3,2-dioxaborolane as
organoborane species and used THF as the solvent in
the above mentioned reaction conditions, the yields
may reach up to 42%. Running the reaction at rt or
using just 1 equiv. of K3PO4 only gave very low yields.
We also found that using other kinds of base such as
K2CO3, Ba(OH)2, NEt3, CsF,6 or KF6 could give only
low to moderate yields. Using cuprous halides instead
of Cu2O did not improve the yields. No reaction was
occurred when the reaction was running in the absence
of palladium catalyst or base. These results indicated
that the coupling product was really obtained via the
Suzuki-type reaction. Interestingly, in contrast to the
previous report,5a we found that the co-catalyst, Cu2O,
is totally unnecessary. Thus, the reaction yield could
reach to 44% in the absence of Cu2O. We then tried to
study the cross-coupling reaction by using different
palladium catalysts or in the presence of ligands as
commonly reported in the literature.6,7
Changing the palladium catalyst from Pd(PPh3)4 to
palladacycle, PdCl2(PPh3)2, or Pd(dba)2, while used
K3PO4, Cs2CO3, NEt3, or iPr2NEt as the base and THF
or DMF as the solvent, could not greatly improve the
Keywords: Suzuki coupling reactions; aryldioxaborolane; 2-bromo-
N,N-dimethylacetamide.
* Corresponding author: Tel.: +886-2-27898576; fax: +886-2-
27888199; e-mail: luoft@chem.sinica.edu.tw
0040-4039/03/$ - see front matter © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0040-4039(03)00066-2

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T.-Y. Lu et al. / Tetrahedron Letters 44 (2003) 1587–1590
yields (entries 1–8, Table 1). However, we found that
the sterically hindered chelating phosphine ligand,
PCy3, furnished good yield in the above Suzuki-type
reaction to afford up to 68% yield of desired product by
using Pd(dba)2 as the catalyst (entry 15, Table 1). Using
other ligands such as PPh3 or P(o-tol)3 proceeded in
somewhat lower yields (entries 9–14, Table 1). Pd(dba)2
seems to be the pertinent catalyst than palladacycle or
Pd(PPh3)4 in the above PCy3-assisted Suzuki-type cross-
coupling reaction (entries 16 and 17, Table 1). When we
run the above reaction in the presence of 10 mol% of
hydroquinone, the yield may reach to 89% (entry 18,
Table 1). The use of other free-radical scavengers such
as Galvinoxyl or TEMPO still gave biphenyl as the
major by-product in 35–43% yield. The formation of
biaryls may be attributed to the transmetallation
between palladium enolate species and arylboronates,
suggesting the possibility that some bases generated
from hydroquinone and K3PO4 enhances the
transmetallation process. Thus, the Suzuki-type cross-
coupling of various aryldioxaborolanes with 2-bromo-
N,N-dimethylacetamide can proceed smoothly under
the similar reaction conditions to give the desired cou-
pling products in moderate to good yields as shown in
Table 2. The structure of the cross-coupling products
tion conditions, but failed. Only bithiophene was iso-
lated in 54% yield along with a trace amount of the
desired cross-coupling product as detected in GC–MS
spectral analysis. Running the above coupling reaction
in the presence of 3.4 equiv. of water gave 35% yield of
the desired product. The coupling reaction of phenyl-
magnesium bromide or phenylzinc chloride with 2-
bromo-N,N-dimethylacetamide did not give any
detectable amount of the desired product. Attempts to
add n-butyllithium to phenyldioxaborolane to form a
borate complex before running the coupling reaction
gave only 10% yield of the desired product.
Based on the known studies of the mechanisms for
Suzuki-type cross-coupling reaction reported in the lit-
erature,8 we proposed the mechanism as shown in
Scheme 1. Thus, dibenzylideneacetone was replaced
initially by tricyclohexylphosphine as the ligand to the
palladium(0) catalyst, after oxidative addition with 2-
bromo-N,N-dimethylacetamide to form bromopalla-
dium enolate complex, the palladium complex was
activated by the presence of base. Another equivalent
of base was activated the aryldioxaborolane to form a
borate complex, which underwent transmetallation with
the activated palladium species to form arylpalladium
enolate complex and a stablilized borate complex.
Reductive elimination of the arylpalladium enolate
complex afforded the cross-coupling product and
regenerate Pd(0) catalyst.
1
were ascertained by H and 13C NMR and mass spec-
tral analysis. We have attempted to do the coupling
reaction of 2-(1,3,2-dioxaborolan-2-yl)thiophene with
2-bromo-N,N-dimethylacetamide under the same reac-
Table 1. The cross-coupling reaction of phenyldioxaborolanes with 2-bromo-N,N-dimethylacetamide
Entry
Catalyst
Ligand
Base
Solvent
Temp. (°C)
Yield (%)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Pd(dba)2
–
–
–
–
–
–
K3PO4
K3PO4
K3PO4
Cs2CO3
iPrNEt2
iPrNEt2
Cs2CO3
Cs2CO3
Cs2CO3
K3PO4
Cs2CO3
K3PO4
K3PO4
NEt3
THF
THF
DMF
THF
THF
DMF
THF
THF
THF
THF
THF
THF
THF
THF
THF
THF
THF
THF
70
70
110
70
70
110
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
20
33
Trace
50
Trace
48
48
42
30
26
23
30
26
Trace
68
60
22
89
Palladacyclea
Palladacycle
Palladacycle
Palladacycle
Palladacycle
PdCl2(PPh3)2
PdCl2(PPh3)2
PdCl2(PPh3)2
Pd(PPh3)4
Pd(OAc)2
NEt3
iPrNEt2
P(o-tol)3
P(o-tol)3
P(o-tol)3
P(o-tol)3
PPh3
PPh3
PCy3
PCy3
PCy3
PCy3
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18b
Pd(dba)2
Pd(dba)2
Pd(dba)2
Pd(dba)2
Palladacycle
Pd(PPh3)4
Pd(dba)2
K3PO4
K3PO4
K3PO4
K3PO4
a
.
b In the presence of 10 mol% of hydroquinone.

T.-Y. Lu et al. / Tetrahedron Letters 44 (2003) 1587–1590
1589
Table 2. Suzuki-type cross-coupling of aryldioxaborolanes with 2-bromo-N,N-dimethylacetamide
Scheme 1. Plausible mechanism of the Suzuki-type reaction to form a-arylamide.

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T.-Y. Lu et al. / Tetrahedron Letters 44 (2003) 1587–1590
In conclusion, a palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling of
aryldioxaborolane with 2-bromo-N,N-dimethylacet-
amide in the presence of a catalytic amount of tricyclo-
hexylphosphine as the ligand and 10 mol% of
hydroquinone as the free-radical scavenger has been
demonstrated as a convenient and simple way to the
synthesis of a-arylacetamide. The sterically hindered
ligand as well as the nature of the palladium catalyst
influenced tremendously the efficiency of the cross-cou-
pling reaction.
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Acknowledgements
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4020.
The authors thank the National Science Council and
Academia Sinica of ROC for financial supports.
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