The first Suzuki cross-couplings of unactivated tertiary alkyl electrophiles are described, employing a readily accessible catalyst (NiBr2·-diglyme/4,4′-di-t-butyl-2,2′-bipyridine, both commercially available); this also represents the initial example of the use of a Group 10 catalyst to cross-couple unactivated tertiary electrophiles to form carbon–carbon bonds. This approach to the synthesis of all-carbon quaternary carbon centers does not suffer from isomerization of the alkyl group, in contrast with the umpolung strategy for this bond construction (cross-coupling a tertiary alkylmetal with an aryl electrophile). Preliminary mechanistic studies are consistent with the generation of a radical intermediate along the reaction pathway.
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