New strategies for biaryl synthesis

ORGN 696

Keith Fagnou, keith.fagnou@uottawa.ca, Department of Chemistry, University of Ottawa, 10 Marie Curie, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada
The structural simplicity of biaryl compounds belies their preparative complexity. Indeed, the search for efficient syntheses has captivated the attention of synthetic chemists for more than a century. Modern biaryl cross-coupling reactions based carbon fragment pre-activation, such as the Suzuki reaction, have revolutionized our ability to forge the carbon-carbon biaryl linkage. With the goal of reducing our dependence on pre-activation, attention is increasingly being focused on direct arylation processes which replace one of the pre-activated substrates with the simple arene itself. Important advances have been made, particularly in the past decade, and more can certainly be anticipated. In stark contrast, cross-coupling reactions that are completely devoid of arene pre-activation are rarely considered. This presentation will describe our recent work in the area of direct arylation as well as our efforts towards the development of a biaryl cross-coupling reaction that does not involve the pre-activation of either aromatic substrate.