Metal-Catalyzed Dealkoxylative C<sub>aryl</sub>C sp 3 Cross-Coupling-Replacement of Aromatic Methoxy Groups of Aryl Ethers by Employing a Functionalized Nucleophile
The direct replacement of aromaticmethoxygroups with activated carbon nucleophiles would give rise to novel synthetic pathways for targeted and diversity‐oriented syntheses. We demonstrate here that this transformation can be achieved in a one‐step reaction involving a bifunctional organolithium nucleophile in combination with a CArOMe bond‐cleaving nickel catalyst. The resulting products are stable
and/or alkyllithium species reacted smoothly with aryl and/or benzyl ethers with cleavage of the inert C−O bond to afford cross‐coupled products, catalyzed by commercially available [Ni(cod)2] (cod=1,5‐cyclooctadiene) catalysts with N‐heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands. Furthermore, the couplingreaction between the aryllithium compounds and aryl ammonium salts proceeded under mild conditions with C−N