Abstract:Readily available alkenylphenols react with allenes under rhodium catalysis to provide valuable 2,2-disubstituted 2H-chromenes. The whole process, which involves the cleavage of one C-H bond of the alkenyl moiety and the participation of the allene as 1C cycloaddition partner, can be considered as a simple, versatile and atom economical (5+1) hetero-annulation. The reaction tolerates a broad range of substituents both in the alkenylphenol and in the allene, and most probably proceeds through a mechanism involving a Rh-catalyzed C-C coupling followed by two sequential pericyclic processes.In recent years there has been a boost in the development of transition-metal catalyzed reactions involving the cleavage of non-activated C-H bonds. [1] While in most of the cases these reactions entail functionalization processes, over the last years there have been also many reports on the development of annulation reactions. [2] In this context, we recently demonstrated that 2-alkenylphenols can be engaged in interesting annulations with alkynes using Rh(III) oxidative catalysis [Eq. (1); Scheme 1]. [3] These reactions have been proposed to involve the formation of six-membered rhodacycles of type A. The synthetic and mechanistic relevance of the transformation called for exploring the performance of unsaturated partners other than alkynes. In particular, we were interested in checking the reactivity of allenes, very attractive unsaturated systems that have been scarcely studied in reactions involving the cleavage of C-H bonds. [4,5] Scheme 1. Oxidative annulations of 2-alkenylphenols.