Ni-catalyzed cross-coupling between aryl alkyl ethers (ArOR) and Grignard reagents (RMgBr), known since 1979, proceeds under mild conditions in many cases. Although the reaction routes of various synthetic protocols involving transition-metal-catalyzed C-O bond activation have been elucidated, the mechanism of this etheric Kumada-Tamao-Curriu reaction remains enigmatic. This is because oxidative addition of inert etheric C-O to Ni(0) is thermodynamically and kinetically unfavorable, making it hard to explain the observed high reactivity of ether toward Ni catalysts. In this work, we used DFT calculations to identify a plausible reaction pathway by the Ni(0)-ate complex, which enables smooth C-O bond cleavage and R-group transfer with reasonable activation barriers; this mechanism also accounts for the ineffectiveness of Pd catalysts. These results throw new light on both C-O activation and cross-coupling, and should be valuable for further rational development of the methodologies.

Various aryl-, alkenyl-, and/or alkyllithium species reacted smoothly with aryl and/or benzyl ethers with cleavage of the inert C-O bond to afford cross-coupled products, catalyzed by commercially available [Ni(cod) ] (cod=1,5-cyclooctadiene) catalysts with N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands. Furthermore, the coupling reaction between the aryllithium compounds and aryl ammonium salts proceeded under mild conditions with C-N bond cleavage in the presence of a [Pd(PPh ) Cl ] catalyst. These methods enable selective sequential functionalizations of arenes having both C-N and C-O bonds in one pot.

We present a direct cross-coupling reaction between arylaluminum compounds (ArAlMe2 ⋅LiCl) and organic halides RX (R=aryl, alkenyl, alkynyl; X=I, Br, and Cl) without any external catalyst. The reaction takes place smoothly, simply upon heating, thereby enabling the efficient and chemo-/stereoselective formation of biaryl, alkene, and alkyne coupling products with broad functional group compatibility.

A revisit of organoaluminum reagents for crosscoupling reactions has opened up several types of C−C bond formation protocols through cleavage of phenolic/alcoholic C−O and C−F and ammonium C−N bonds.Catalyzed by the commercially available NiCl 2 (PCy 3 ) 2 catalyst, these reactions proceed smoothly with a wide range of substrates and broad functional group compatibility, providing a versatile methodology for organoaluminum-mediated cross-coupling processes.

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