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Updated: May 10, 2026

A Microwave-Assisted Direct Heteroarylation of Ketones Using Transition Metal Catalysis
Published on: February 16, 2020
Catalytic formation of ketones from unactivated esters through rhodium chelation-assisted C-O bond activation
Jingjing Wang1, Sujing Zuo, Weiqiang Chen
1Department of Chemistry, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, P. R. of China.
Abstract:
A new method for building aryl aryl ketones containing heterocyclic rings through chelation-assisted C-O bond activation catalyzed by a rhodium complex has been developed. In this reaction, methyl quinoline-8-carboxylate, methyl quinoxaline-5-carboxylate, and their derivatives were reacted with an excess amount of a substituted phenyl boronic acid in the presence of a rhodium(I) complex to give substituted phenyl(quinolin-8-yl)methanone, phenylquinoxalin-5-ylmethanone, and their derivatives in medium to high yields. The current method offers a highly favorable synthetic pathway to efficiently build related drugs with an 8-benzoylquinoline core structure. This method may prove especially valuable for medicinal chemists for the late-stage introduction of versatile ketone moieties into complex scaffolds for diversity-oriented synthetic strategies.
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