“…A wide variety of aryl aldehydes with an electron-neutral, electron-donating, or electron-withdrawing substituent at the para position were reactive, delivering the desired products (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19) in good yields. In particular, various common functional groups were tolerated, such as halogen atoms (11, 12), a methanesulfonyl group (13), a ketone ( 14), an ester ( 17), a trifluoromethanesulfonyl group (18), and a pyrazole ring (19). Intriguingly, several relatively sensitive yet versatile functional groups-cyano (15), boronic acid ester (16), formyl (20), and alkyne (21)-tolerated the difunctionalization conditions well, which shows the potential utility of this protocol for synthetic and medicinal chemistry applications.…”