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Updated: Nov 11, 2025

A Microwave-Assisted Direct Heteroarylation of Ketones Using Transition Metal Catalysis
Published on: February 16, 2020
Photocatalytic Dehydroxymethylative Arylation by Synergistic Cerium and Nickel Catalysis
Yuegang Chen1, Xin Wang1, Xu He1
1School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China.
Abstract:
Under mild reaction conditions with inexpensive cerium and nickel catalysts, easily accessible free alcohols can now be utilized as operationally simple and robust carbon pronucleophiles in selective C(sp3)-C(sp2) cross-couplings. Facilitated by automated high-throughput experimentation, sterically encumbered benzoate ligands have been identified for robust cerium complexes, enabling the synergistic cooperation of cerium catalysis in the emerging metallaphotoredox catalysis. A broad range of free alcohols and aromatic halides can be facilely employed in this transformation, representing a new paradigm for the C(sp3)-C(sp2) bond construction between free alcohols and aryl halides with the extrusion of formaldehyde. Moreover, mechanistic investigations have been conducted, leading to the identification of a tribenzoate cerium(III) complex as a viable intermediate.
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