Palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions enable organic chemists to form C-C bonds in targeted positions and under mild conditions. Although phosphine ligands have been intensively researched, in the search for even better cross-coupling catalysts attention has recently turned to the use of N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands, which form a strong bond to the palladium center. PEPPSI (pyridine-enhanced precatalyst preparation, stabilization, and initiation) palladium precatalysts with bulky NHC ligands have established themselves as successful alternatives to palladium phosphine complexes. This Review shows the success of these species in Suzuki-Miyaura, Negishi, and Stille-Migita cross-couplings as well as in amination and sulfination reactions.

Incredible Bulk: A series of N-heterocyclic carbene catalysts (see picture) were prepared and evaluated in the Suzuki-Miyaura reaction. A variety of sterically encumbered tetra-ortho-substituted biaryl products were formed from unreactive aryl chlorides using the isopentyl-substituted catalyst at temperatures ranging from 65 degrees C to room temperature. The cyclopentyl-substituted catalyst was virtually inactive, demonstrating that "flexible bulk" is essential to promote these transformations.

Variable Größe: Eine Reihe von Katalysatoren mit N‐heterocyclischen Carbenliganden (siehe Beispiel) wurde hergestellt und in der Suzuki‐Miyaura‐Reaktion getestet. Mit einem Isopentyl‐substituierten Katalysator wurden die sterisch befrachteten vierfach ortho‐substituierten Biarylprodukte aus wenig reaktiven Arylchloriden zwischen Raumtemperatur und 65 °C erhalten. Dass der Cyclopentyl‐substituierte Katalysator praktisch nicht aktiv war, zeigt die entscheidende Bedeutung eines „flexiblen Raumbedarfs“ bei diesen Umsetzungen.

Pd-PEPPSI-IPent, a recently-developed N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) complex, has been evaluated in amination reactions with secondary amines and it has shown superb reactivity under the most mildly basic reaction conditions. Rate and computational studies were conducted to provide insight into the mechanism of the transformation. The IPent catalyst coordinates to the amine much more strongly than the IPr variant, thus favouring deprotonation with comparatively weak bases. Indeed the reaction is first order in base and only slightly more than zeroth order in amine.

The amination of aryl chlorides with various aniline derivatives using the N-heterocyclic carbene-based Pd complexes Pd-PEPPSI-IPr and Pd-PEPPSI-IPent (PEPPSI=pyridine, enhanced precatalyst, preparation, stabilization, and initiation; IPr=diisopropylphenylimidazolium derivative; IPent= diisopentylphenylimidazolium derivative) has been studied. Rate studies have shown a reliance on the aryl chloride to be electron poor, although oxidative addition is not rate limiting. Anilines couple best when they are electron rich, which would seem to discount deprotonation of the intermediate metal ammonium complex as being rate limiting in favour of reductive elimination. In previous studies with secondary amines using PEPPSI complexes, deprotonation was proposed to be the slow step in the cycle. These experimental findings relating to mechanism were corroborated by computation. Pd-PEPPSI-IPr and the more hindered Pd-PEPPSI-IPent catalysts were used to couple deactivated aryl chlorides with electron poor anilines; while the IPr catalysis was sluggish, the IPent catalyst performed extremely well, again showing the high reactivity of this broadly useful catalyst.