ConspectusThe cores of many types of polymers, ligands, natural products, and pharmaceuticals contain biaryl or substituted aromatic structures, and efficient methods of synthesizing these structures are crucial to the work of a broad spectrum of organic chemists. Recently, Pd-catalyzed carbon-carbon bondforming processes, particularly the Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction (SMC), have risen in popularity for this purpose. The SMC has many advantages over other methods for constructing these moieties, including mild conditions, high tolerance toward functional groups, the commercial availability and stability of its reagents, and the ease of handling and separating byproducts from its reaction mixtures.Until 1998, most catalysts for the SMC employed triarylphosphine ligands. More recently, new bulky and electron-rich phosphine ligands, which can dramatically improve the efficiency and selectivity of such cross-coupling reactions, have been introduced. In the course of our studies on carbonnitrogen bond-forming reactions, we found that the use of electron-rich and bulky phosphines enhanced the rate of both the oxidative addition and reductive elimination processes; this was the beginning of our development of a new family of ligands, the dialkylbiarylphosphines L1-L12. These ligands can be used for a wide variety of palladium-catalyzed carbon-carbon, carbon-nitrogen, and carbon-oxygen bond-forming processes as well as serving as supporting ligands for a number of other reactions.The enhanced reactivity of these catalysts has expanded the scope of cross-coupling partners that can be employed in the SMC. Using such dialkylbiarylphosphine ligands, the coupling of unactivated aryl chlorides, aryl tosylates, heteroaryl systems, and very hindered substrate combinations have become routine. The utility of these ligands has been successfully demonstrated in a wide number of synthetic applications, including industrially relevant processes.In this account, we provide an overview of the use and impact of dialkylbiarylphosphine ligands in the SMC. We discuss our studies on the mechanistic framework of the reaction, which have allowed us to rationally modify the ligand structures in order to tune their properties. We also describe selected applications in the synthesis of natural products and new materials to illustrate the utility of these dialkylbiarylphosphine ligands in various "real-world" synthetic applications. IntroductionThe impact of the Suzuki-Miyaura reaction (SMC) on academic and industrial research as well as on production has been immense. 1 Over the past two decades, it has become arguably one of the most efficient methods for the construction of biaryl or substituted aromatic moieties; compounds that contain these substructures constitute important building blocks of polymers, sbuchwal@mit.edu. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript 2 ligands, 3 a wide range of natural products such as alkaloids, as well as in numerous biologically active pharmaceutic...

A series of unprecedented organoiron complexes of the formal oxidation states -2, 0, +1, +2, and +3 is presented, which are largely devoid of stabilizing ligands and, in part, also electronically unsaturated (14-, 16-, 17- and 18-electron counts). Specifically, it is shown that nucleophiles unable to undergo beta-hydride elimination, such as MeLi, PhLi, or PhMgBr, rapidly reduce Fe(3+) to Fe(2+) and then exhaustively alkylate the metal center. The resulting homoleptic organoferrate complexes [(Me 4Fe)(MeLi)][Li(OEt 2)] 2 ( 3) and [Ph 4Fe][Li(Et 2O) 2][Li(1,4-dioxane)] ( 5) could be characterized by X-ray crystal structure analysis. However, these exceptionally sensitive compounds turned out to be only moderately nucleophilic, transferring their organic ligands to activated electrophiles only, while being unable to alkylate (hetero)aryl halides unless they are very electron deficient. In striking contrast, Grignard reagents bearing alkyl residues amenable to beta-hydride elimination reduce FeX n ( n = 2, 3) to clusters of the formal composition [Fe(MgX) 2] n . The behavior of these intermetallic species can be emulated by structurally well-defined lithium ferrate complexes of the type [Fe(C 2H 4) 4][Li(tmeda)] 2 ( 8), [Fe(cod) 2][Li(dme)] 2 ( 9), [CpFe(C 2H 4) 2][Li(tmeda)] ( 7), [CpFe(cod)][Li(dme)] ( 11), or [Cp*Fe(C 2H 4) 2][Li(tmeda)] ( 14). Such electron-rich complexes, which are distinguished by short intermetallic Fe-Li bonds, were shown to react with aryl chlorides and allyl halides; the structures and reactivity patterns of the resulting organoiron compounds provide first insights into the elementary steps of low valent iron-catalyzed cross coupling reactions of aryl, alkyl, allyl, benzyl, and propargyl halides with organomagnesium reagents. However, the acquired data suggest that such C-C bond formations can occur, a priori, along different catalytic cycles shuttling between metal centers of the formal oxidation states Fe(+1)/Fe(+3), Fe(0)/Fe(+2), and Fe(-2)/Fe(0). Since these different manifolds are likely interconnected, an unambiguous decision as to which redox cycle dominates in solution remains difficult, even though iron complexes of the lowest accessible formal oxidation states promote the reactions most effectively.

A mechanistic and computational study on the reductive cleavage of C-OMe bonds catalyzed by Ni(COD)(2)/PCy(3) with silanes as reducing agents is reported herein. Specifically, we demonstrate that the mechanism for this transformation does not proceed via oxidative addition of the Ni(0) precatalyst into the C-OMe bond. In the absence of an external reducing agent, the in-situ-generated oxidative addition complexes rapidly undergo β-hydride elimination at room temperature, ultimately leading to either Ni(0)-carbonyl- or Ni(0)-aldehyde-bound complexes. Characterization of these complexes by X-ray crystallography unambiguously suggested a different mechanistic scenario when silanes are present in the reaction media. Isotopic-labeling experiments, kinetic isotope effects, and computational studies clearly reinforced this perception. Additionally, we also found that water has a deleterious effect by deactivating the Ni catalyst via formation of a new Ni-bridged hydroxo species that was characterized by X-ray crystallography. The order in each component was determined by plotting the initial rates of the C-OMe bond cleavage at varying concentrations. These data together with the in-situ-monitoring experiments by (1)H NMR, EPR, IR spectroscopy, and theoretical calculations provided a mechanistic picture that involves Ni(I) as the key reaction intermediates, which are generated via comproportionation of initially formed Ni(II) species. This study strongly supports that a classical Ni(0)/Ni(II) for C-OMe bond cleavage is not operating, thus opening up new perspectives to be implemented in other related C-O bond-cleavage reactions.

In 1979, the seminal work of Wenkert set the standards for the utilization of aryl and vinyl ethers as coupling partners via C-O bond-cleavage. Although the topic remained dormant for almost three decades, the last years have witnessed a renaissance in this area of expertise, experiencing an exponential growth and becoming a significant discipline within the cross-coupling arena. The means to utilize readily accessible aryl or vinyl ethers as counterparts does not only represent a practical, powerful and straightforward alternative to organic halides, but also constitutes an excellent opportunity to improve our chemical knowledge on a relative unexplored area of expertise. This review summarizes the most significant developments in the area of C-O bond-cleavage when employing aryl or vinyl ethers, providing a detailed overview of the current state of the art and including future aspects, when applicable.