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Published on: April 22, 2016
Nickel-Catalyzed Etherification of Phenols and Aryl Halides through Visible-Light-Induced Energy Transfer
Da-Liang Zhu1,2, Shan Jiang1, Qi Wu1
1College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China.
Abstract:
Notwithstanding some progress in nickel-catalyzed etherification of alkanols and arylhalides, the ability of such a Ni-catalyzed transformation employing phenols to diaryl ethers is unsuccessful due to phenolates with much lower reduction potentials, which suppress the oxidation of nickel(II) intermediates into requisite Ni(III) species. We herein report visible-light-initiated, nickel-catalyzed O-arylation of phenols with arylhalides using t-BuNH(i-Pr) as the base and thioxanthen-9-one as the photosensitizer under visible light. This photocoupling exhibits a broad substrate scope.
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