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Updated: Jun 15, 2026

Palladium N-Heterocyclic Carbene Complexes: Synthesis from Benzimidazolium Salts and Catalytic Activity in Carbon-carbon Bond-forming Reactions
Published on: July 30, 2017
Palladium-catalyzed amination of aromatic C-H bonds with oxime esters
1Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 600 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
Abstract:
We report a conceptually new approach to the direct amination of aromatic C-H bonds. In this process, an oxime ester function reacts with an aromatic C-H bond under redox-neutral conditions to form, in the case studied, an indole product. These reactions occur with relatively low catalyst loading (1 mol %) by a mechanism that appears to involve an unusual initial oxidative addition of an N-O bond to a Pd(0) species. The Pd(II) complex from oxidative addition of the N-X bond has been isolated for the first time, and evidence for the intermediacy of such oxidative addition products in the catalytic reaction has been gained.
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