Modular syntheses of functionalised, alkoxy-tethered 1,3-bis(2,4,6-trimethylphenyl)imidazolium (IMes·H + ) and 1,3-bis(2,6-diisopropylphen-,6-diisopropylphenyl)imidazolium (IPrO R ·H + ) are reported. A reliable synthesis of the key starting material 4-amino-3,5-diisopropylphenol is also described. Etherification of hydroxydecorated ligand intermediates before formation of the imidazolium core and subsequent modification, or direct etherification of the versatile synthon IPrO H ·HCl, allowed access to various linker types including triethoxysilyl, primary amino and norbornenyl, which are not accessible by other methods. An IPrO R -palladium(II) complex was prepared, and its catalytic activity was evaluated in challenging Buchwald-Hartwig aminations of aryl chlorides. This precatalyst displayed excellent activity and selectivity under mild reaction conditions, achieving in some cases a 10-fold improvement in TOF relative to the IPr-based version. An unexpected activity profile was observed wherein sterically demanding anilines were coupled more easily than those lacking orthosubstitution.
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FULL PAPERSModular Synthesis of Functionalisable Alkoxy-Tethered NHC cially available 4-amino-3,5-dimethylphenol (1a, Scheme 2) as starting material for the synthesis of oligomer [11c,d] or bulky alkyl-decorated [22] Grubbs-Hoveyda metathesis catalysts bearing alkoxy-modified SIMes analogues. Similar methodology can be envisioned for the formation of IPr analogues; however, to the best of our knowledge 4-amino-3,5-diisopropylphenol (1b, Scheme 2) has not been reported outside the patent literature, and the synthesis described is unattractive. [23] Therefore, an improved synthesis of this valuable intermediate was needed which employs readily available materials. As shown in Scheme 2, 2,6-diisopropylaniline (2) was oxidised [24] to the nitrobenzene 3 and subsequently partially reduced to the putative hydroxylamine 4 using methodology based on literature precedent. [25] The crude product was then directly treated with aqueous acid to effect a Bamberger rearrangement, [26] affording 1b in acceptable yield over two steps.The previous NHC syntheses employing 1a required protection of the aminophenol before a Mitsunobu-type etherification in one case, [11c] or direct etherification (in low yield) in the other. [22] We found that, under the proper reaction conditions, N,N'-bis-A C H T U N G T R E N N U N G (hydroxyaryl)diazabutadienes 5a/b (prepared from 1a/ b by condensation with a glyoxal equivalent) could be used directly for etherification to produce alkene-decorated 6a/b in excellent yield without the need for protection/deprotection steps (Scheme 3).Conversion of the functionalised diazabutadienes 6a/b to their corresponding imidazolium NHC precursors 7-9 was accomplished following two different routes (Scheme 3). The trifluoromethanesulfonate salts IXyO ene ·HOTf (7a) and IPrO ene ·HOTf (8a) were prepared using conditions reported by Glorius, [5a] employing in situ-generated pivaloylmethyl trifluoromethanesulfonate as a C ...