No abstract

Heterobiaryls serve as relevant structural motifs in many fields of high applicative importance such as drugs, agrochemicals, organic functional materials etc. Cross-dehydrogenative coupling involving direct oxidation of two CÀ H bonds to construct a CÀ C bond is actively being pursued as a more benign and 'greener' alternative for synthesizing heterobiaryls. Herein, we report a Cu(I)-catalyzed crossdehydrogenative coupling of indoles and furans, two of the most important aromatic heterocycles using air as the terminal oxidant. The reaction proceeds with regio-and chemoselectivity to give the cross-coupled products in good to excellent yields generally. A broad substrate scope with respect to both the coupling partners has been demonstrated to prove the generality of this reaction. This represents the hitherto unexplored cross-dehydrogenative coupling methodology to obtain an indole-furan biaryl motif.