Iron-Catalyzed C-H Activation for Heterocoupling and Copolymerization of Thiophenes with Enamines

C-H/C-H coupling via C-H activation provides straightforward synthetic access to the construction of complex π-conjugated organic molecules. The palladium-catalyzed Fujiwara-Moritani (FM) coupling between an arene and an electron-deficient olefin presents an early example but is not applicable to enamines such as N-vinylcarbazoles and N-vinylindoles. We report herein iron-catalyzed C-H/C-H heterocoupling between enamines and thiophenes and its application to copolymerization of bisenamine and bisthiophene using diethyl oxalate as an oxidant and AlMe₃ as a base, as a result of our realization that synthetic limitations in oxidative C-H/C-H couplings imposed by the high redox potential of the Pd(II)/Pd(0) catalytic cycle can be circumvented by the use of iron, which has a lower Fe(III)/Fe(I) redox potential. The trisphosphine ligand provides a coordination environment for iron to achieve the reaction's regio-, stereo-, and chemoselectivity. The reaction includes C-H activation of thiophene via σ-bond metathesis and subsequent enamine C-H cleavage triggered by nucleophilic enamine addition to the Fe(III) center, thereby differing from the FM reaction in mechanism and synthetic scope. The copolymers synthesized by the new reaction possess a new type of enamine-incorporated polymer backbone.