Nitrogen-containing heteroaromatic cores are ubiquitous building blocks in organic chemistry. Herein, we present a family of metal-free intermolecular formal cycloaddition reactions that enable highly selective and orthogonal access to isoquinolines and pyrimidines at will. Applications of the products are complemented by a density functional theory mechanistic analysis that pinpoints the crucial factors responsible for the selectivity observed, including stoichiometry and the nature of the heteroalkyne.

Broad scope and good tolerance: An efficient cross‐coupling of aryltrimethylammonium iodide salts with aryl‐, methyl‐, and benzylzinc chlorides catalyzed by [Ni(PCy3)2Cl2] has been achieved (see scheme). The reaction involves cleavage of the CN bond and displays broad substrate scope and good functional group tolerance. NMP=N‐methylpyrrolidine.

A Brønsted acid catalyzed redox arylation of ynamides that employs aryl sulfoxides as the arylating agents is reported. This metal-free transformation proceeds at room temperature and efficiently affords α-arylated oxazolidinones in a redox-neutral, atom-economic fashion.

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