Exhaustive Reduction of Esters Enabled by Nickel Catalysis.

We report a one-step procedure to directly reduce unactivated aryl esters into their corresponding tolyl derivatives. This is achieved by an organosilane-mediated ester hydrosilylation reaction and subsequent Ni/NHC-catalyzed hydrogenolysis. The resulting conditions provide a direct and efficient alternative to multi-step procedures for this transformation that often require the use of hazardous metal hydrides. Applications in the synthesis of -CD3-containing products, derivatization of bioactive molecules, and chemoselective reduction in the presence of other C-O bonds are demonstrated.

Rhenium(I)-Catalyzed ortho-C-H Addition to Bicyclic Alkenes.

Hydroarylation of bicyclic alkenes has been developed using a low-valent ReI -catalyzed, directing group-assisted C-H bond activation strategy. The addition of sodium acetate significantly improves the reaction efficiency; moreover, bicyclic alkenes such as 7-oxa and aza benzonorbornadienes worked efficiently under this reaction condition. Preliminary mechanistic studies suggest that, after the alkene insertion, the rhenacycle preferentially undergoes protonolysis rather than reductive elimination.

Cobalt-Catalyzed Oxidative Annulation of Nitrogen-Containing Arenes with Alkynes: An Atom-Economical Route to Heterocyclic Quaternary Ammonium Salts.

Four cobalt-catalyzed oxidative annulation reactions of nitrogen-containing arenes with alkynes proceeds by C-H activation, thus leading to biologically useful quaternary ammonium salts, including pyridoisoquinolinium, cinnolinium, isoquinolinium, and quinolizinium salts, in high yields. The results are comparable to those reactions catalyzed by rhodium and ruthenium complexes. The transformation of the salts into various N-heterocycles has also been demonstrated.

Rh-catalyzed oxidizing group-directed ortho C-H vinylation of arenes by vinylstannanes.

An efficient method for the synthesis of functionalized vinyl arenes from the reaction of N-methoxybenzamides or N-phenoxyacetamides with vinylstannanes via rhodium(iii)-catalyzed C-H activation is described. The application of the methodology for the synthesis of a natural product thalactamine and a 7-membered ring oxepine are also demonstrated.