1,3-Bis(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)imidazolium chloride, [DIPrim]Cl, was used to produce a novel iron(III)-containing imidazolium salt [DIPrim] [FeCl 4 ], which included a N,N-diarylimidazolium cation (R = 2,6-diisopropylphenyl), [DIPrim] + , and tetrachloroferrate(III) anion, [FeCl 4 ] . This compound was an effective and easy-to-use catalyst for the cross-coupling of aryl Grignard reagents with primary and secondary alkyl halides bearing -hydrogens. After simply decanting the cross-coupling product in the ether layer, [DIPrim] [FeCl 4 ] could be reused in at least four successive runs without significant loss of catalytic activity. The transition metal-catalyzed Grignard cross-coupling reaction is a powerful and widely used method for the construction of carbon-carbon bonds [1]. Although a variety of palladium or nickel-based catalysts are particularly effective for the cross-coupling of alkenyl or aryl halides, recent reports on the use of alkyl halides, especially those with -hydrogen atoms, as substrates suggests iron catalysis has potential in this field [2,3]. In comparison with established palladium or nickel-based systems, iron-based catalysts offer a cost efficient, safe and more environmentally benign approach, and the capacity to suppress undesirable -hydride eliminations.To date, a variety of iron-based catalysts have been developed for the cross-coupling of an aryl Grignard reagent with primary or secondary alky halides bearing -hydrogens.
For example, well-defined iron complexes, such as the iron (II) tetrakisferrate complex [4], iron(III) salen complexes [5], iron(II) or iron(III) imine complexes [6] and iron(III)amine-bis(phenolate) complexes [7], have shown good crosscoupling activity. In addition, although Fe(acac) 3 (acac = acetylacetonate) can catalyze this cross-coupling reaction [8], amine additives are necessary to achieve higher yields of the cross-coupled product [9]. Notably, FeCl 3 can be used effectively in the presence of appropriate additives, such as amines [9][10][11], phosphines, phosphites, arsines and carbene precursors [12]. Although the direct use of FeCl 3 generally suffers from limitations such as high hygroscopicity of FeCl 3 and the variable yield according to the purity and commercial source of FeCl 3 [13], this method appears particularly attractive because of the simplicity and low cost of the metal salt combined with the high efficiency of the catalytic system. Consequently, this method represents a very powerful approach, if these limitations can be overcome [9,11].Two reports describing the use of FeCl 3 have appeared in the literature. Cahiez et al. [9] discovered that hygroscopic FeCl 3 could be easily modified into a hydrophobic and airstable iron(III) complex [(FeCl 3 ) 2 (tmeda) 3 ] (tmeda = N,N,N′,N′-tetramethylethylenediamine) by direct reaction of FeCl 3 with tmeda in a 2 : 3 molar ratio. Moreover, this complex showed significantly better activity than a stoichiometric mixture of FeCl 3 and tmeda [10,11]. Of particular note is a