Borylation of aryldiazonium salts at room temperature in an aqueous solution under catalyst-free conditions

Room-Temperature Copper-Mediated Radiocyanation of Aryldiazonium Salts and Aryl Iodides via Aryl Radical Intermediates

Radiocyanation is an attractive strategy for incorporating carbon-11 into radiotracer targets, particularly given the broad scope of acyl moieties accessible from nitriles. Most existing methods for aromatic radiocyanation require elevated temperatures (Cu-mediated reactions of aryl halides or organometallics) or involve expensive and toxic palladium complexes (Pd-mediated reactions of aryl halides). The current report discloses a complementary approach that leverages the capture of aryl radical intermediates by a Cu-11CN complex to achieve rapid and mild (5 min, room temperature) radiocyanation. In a first example, aryl radicals are generated via the reaction of a CuI mediator with an aryldiazonium salt (a Sandmeyer-type reaction) followed by radiocyanation with Cu-11CN. In a second example, aryl radicals are formed from aryl iodides via visible-light photocatalysis and then captured by a Cu-11CN species to achieve aryl-11CN coupling. This approach provides access to radiocyanated products that are challenging to access using other methods (e.g., ortho-disubstituted aryl nitriles).

Transition Metal-Free Aromatic C-H, C-N, C-S and C-O Borylation

Aromatic organoboron compounds are highly valuable building blocks in organic chemistry. They were mainly synthesized through aromatic C-H and C-Het borylation, in which transition metal-catalysis dominate. In the past decade, with increasing attention to sustainable chemistry, numerous transition metal-free C-H and C-Het borylation transformations have been developed and emerged as efficient methods towards the synthesis of aromatic organoboron compounds. This account mainly focuses on recent advances in transition metal-free aromatic C-H, C-N, C-S, and C-O borylation transformations and provides insights to where further developments are required.

Copper-Free Halodediazoniation of Arenediazonium Tetrafluoroborates in Deep Eutectic Solvents-like Mixtures

Deep Eutectic Solvent (DES)-like mixtures, based on glycerol and different halide organic and inorganic salts, are successfully exploited as new media in copper-free halodediazoniation of arenediazonium salts. The reactions are carried out in absence of metal-based catalysts, at room temperature and in a short time. Pure target products are obtained without the need for chromatographic separation. The solvents are fully characterized, and a computational study is presented aiming to understand the reaction mechanism.

Light- and Manganese-Initiated Borylation of Aryl Diazonium Salts: Mechanistic Insight on the Ultrafast Time-Scale Revealed by Time-Resolved Spectroscopic Analysis

Manganese-mediated borylation of aryl/heteroaryl diazonium salts emerges as a general and versatile synthetic methodology for the synthesis of the corresponding boronate esters. The reaction proved an ideal testing ground for delineating the Mn species responsible for the photochemical reaction processes, that is, involving either Mn radical or Mn cationic species, which is dependent on the presence of a suitably strong oxidant. Our findings are important for a plethora of processes employing Mn-containing carbonyl species as initiators and/or catalysts, which have considerable potential in synthetic applications.

Methodologies and Strategies for Selective Borylation of C-Het and C-C Bonds

Organoborons have emerged as versatile building blocks in organic synthesis to achieve molecular diversity and as carboxylic acid bioisosteres with broad applicability in drug discovery. Traditionally, these compounds are prepared by the substitution of Grignard/lithium reagents with electrophilic boron species and Brown hydroboration. Recent developments have provided new routes for the efficient preparation of organoborons by applying reactions using chemical feedstocks with leaving groups. As compared to the previous methods that used organic halides (I, Br, and Cl), the direct borylation of less reactive C-Het and C-C bonds has become highly important to get efficiency and functional-group compatibility. This Review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of this topic, including (1) C-F bond borylation, (2) C-O bond borylation, (3) C-S bond borylation, (4) C-N bond borylation, and (5) C-C bond borylation. Considerable attention is given to the strategies and mechanisms involved. We expect that this Review will inspire chemists to discover more efficient transformations to expand this field.

Borylation of Diazonium Salts by Highly Emissive and Crystalline Carbon Dots in Water

Efficient borylation reaction of diazonium salts in water is realized for the first time by using easily prepared, highly emissive and crystalline carbon dots. Electron-donating and electron-withdrawing groups on diazonium salts were well tolerated with moderate to good conversion efficiency. Compared with widely used metal complexes, organic dyes and quantum dots, the approach presented herein uses carbon dots, which are nontoxic and possess good biological and medicinal compatibility and high reactivity. Therefore, this approach presents a new prospective use for carbon dots in green chemistry.

Green hydroboration of carboxylic acids and mechanism investigation

A catalyst-free and solvent-free method for the hydroboration of a variety of carboxylic acids with pinacolborane was developed. The hydroboration of various aromatic and aliphatic carboxylic acids as well as dicarboxylic acids with HBpin could be completed within 6 h at room temperature or within 1 h at 60 °C to give the products in quantitative yields under neat conditions without the need for any solvent or metal catalyst. The possible reaction mechanism was investigated in detail based on the corresponding DFT calculations and the stoichiometric reaction of acetic acid with different equivalents of HBpin (at room temperature and 0 °C) and it revealed the stepwise nature of the protocol.

New avenues for C-B bond formation via radical intermediates

This perspective gives an overview on recent findings in the emerging area of C-radical borylation using diborons as radical trapping reagents. Aryl, vinyl and alkyl boronic esters can be accessed via such an approach under mild conditions. These processes are complementary to established transition metal catalysed cross coupling reactions. Radical borylations can be conducted in the absence of a transition metal but some processes require transition metals as catalysts. It will be shown that various readily available C-radical precursors can be used to run these borylations. For a better understanding of the chemistry, mechanistic discussions are also presented and an outlook on this topic will be provided at the end of the article.

Facile reduction of carboxylic acids to primary alcohols under catalyst-free and solvent-free conditions

We report the development of a facile protocol for the deoxygenative hydroboration of aliphatic and aryl carboxylic acids to afford corresponding primary alcohols under solvent-free and catalyst-free conditions. The reaction proceeds under ambient temperature exhibits good tolerance towards various functional groups and generates quantitative yields. The plausible mechanism involves the formation of Lewis acid-base adducts as well as the liberation of hydrogen gas.

Direct Transformation from Arylamines to Aryl Naphthalene-1,8-diamino Boronamides: A Metal-Free Sandmeyer-Type Process

A direct metal-free transformation from arylamines to aryl naphthalene-1,8-diamino boronamides, a type of masked boronic acid, has been developed based on Sandmeyer-type reactions. A nonsymmetrical diboron reagent, B(pin)-B(dan), was utilized as the borylating reagent, and the B(dan) moiety was transferred to the aim products selectively. This conversion tolerated a series of functional groups, including chloro, bromo, fluoro, ester, hydroxy, cyano and amide.

Recent Synthesis Developments of Organoboron Compounds via Metal-Free Catalytic Borylation of Alkynes and Alkenes

Diboron reagents have been traditionally regarded as "Lewis acids", which can react with simple Lewis base to create a significant nucleophilic character in one of boryl moieties. In particular, bis(pinacolato)diboron (B₂pin₂) reacts with simple Lewis bases, such as N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs), phosphines and alkoxides. This review focuses on the application of trivalent nucleophilic boryl synthon in the selective preparation of organoboron compounds, mainly through metal-free catalytic diboration and the β-boration reactions of alkynes and alkenes.

Alcohol-Initiated Dediazoniation of Aryldiazonium Ions to Aryl Radicals: A Simple and Efficient Route to Arylboronates

A simple and efficient access to arylboronates was achieved with methanol-initiated borylation of aryldiazonium salts. Reduction of aryldiazonium ions by single electron transfer from methanol affords aryl radical species, which undergo a subsequent C–B bond formation with bis(pinacolato)diboron. This highly practical borylation process, which can be carried out on the gram-scale, enjoys operational simplicity as well as mild and catalyst-free conditions.

Phosphite-catalyzed alkoxycarbonylation of aryl diazonium salts

In this communication, an interesting phosphite-catalyzed alkoxycarbonylation of aryl diazonium salts has been reported. At room temperature and under CO pressure, moderate to good yields of the desired esters can be produced in the absence of bases or any other additives.

Renaissance of Sandmeyer-Type Reactions: Conversion of Aromatic C-N Bonds into C-X Bonds (X = B, Sn, P, or CF3)

The Sandmeyer reaction represents an important organic transformation that converts an arylamine to an aryl halide using Cu(I) halide via a diazonium salt intermediate. The reaction was first reported by Sandmeyer in 1884, and a number of named reactions closely related to it have been developed and widely applied in organic synthesis throughout the 20th century. These include the Pschorr reaction for the synthesis of biaryl tricycles, the Gomberg-Bachmann reaction for biaryl formations, the Balz-Schiemann reaction for C-F bond formations, and the Meerwein reaction for arylation of α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds. However, all these reactions were discovered before 1940. In 1977, Doyle and co-workers reported an organic phase diazotization process, and Kikukawa and Matsuda used aryldiazonium salts in transition metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. However, completely new processes involving diazonium salts have been seldom reported since then, although aryldiazonium salts are widely utilized in modern organic synthesis. In the past few years, diazonium salt chemistry has been revisited and become a fast-growing research topic. Several novel transformations based on diazonium salts have been developed and have been practiced in organic synthesis. In 2010, we reported a direct conversion of arylamines to pinacol boronates through the reaction of in situ generated aryl diazonium salts with B₂pin₂. This new strategy is under metal-free conditions and thus completely avoids contamination by transition metals in the boron products. From readily available arylamines various functionalized arylboronates, some of which are difficult to access by other methods, can be easily obtained with this reaction. Mechanistic investigations indicate the reaction likely follows a radical mechanism, which is similar to traditional Sandmeyer-type reactions. Subsequently, modified reaction conditions for this transformation appeared in the literature, which include light-induced reactions, aqueous-phase diazotization methods, and reactions with aryltriazenes as the arene diazonium salt surrogates. In addition to the borylation, we have also demonstrated the corresponding stannylation and phosphorylation of arylamines with similar Sandmeyer-type approaches. The stannylation of arylamines was achieved by the reaction of in situ generated diazonium salts with a distannane reagent, while phosphorylation is the reaction of arylamines with trimethyl phosphite in the presence of tert-butyl nitrite (t-BuONO). With the sequential borylation and stannylation approaches, the aromatic compounds bearing two amino groups are easily converted into trimethylstannyl arylboronates, which can be further used in consecutive Stille and Suzuki-Miyaura cross-couplings. Finally, direct conversion of the amino group of arylamines to the trifluoromethyl group has been developed through aryl diazonium salts almost simultaneously by several groups. These reactions represent a novel strategy to achieve trifluoromethylation of aromatic compounds. These developments show the revivification of this age-old chemistry, and this Account will summarize the Sandmeyer reaction-related transformations that have been developed since 2010.

Reactivity of highly Lewis acidic diborane(4) towards pyridine and isocyanide: formation of boraalkene-pyridine complex and ortho-functionalized pyridine derivatives

The reaction of pinB-BMes2 (pin = pinacolato, Mes = 2,4,6-Me3C6H2) with Xyl-NC (Xyl = 2,6-Me2C6H3) and pyridine results in the formation of a pyridine-coordinated boraalkene that exhibits an intense color caused by an intramolecular charge-transfer interaction. In the presence of an excess of pyridine, the ortho C-H bond of pyridine was selectively functionalized to afford a quinoid compound or an isocyanide-coupled product. Based on the concentration effect, the reaction stoichiometry, and previously reported DFT calculations, a reaction mechanism that involves several rearrangement reactions was proposed. Using the present method, substituted pyridines and N-heterocycles afforded the corresponding functionalized derivatives. A subsequent hydrolysis of one of the resulting products furnished an aminomethylated pyridine derivative in two steps from parent pyridine.