Organic Syntheses, Vol. 85, p.196 (2008).
Checked by Scott E. Denmark and Nathan S. Werner.
1. Procedure
2. Notes
1.
2-Nitrobenzoic acid was purchased from Acros Organics, and used as received.
Avoid contact with skin and eyes. Use only in a chemical fume hood.
2.
Ethanol was purchased from Pharmco-AAPER, and used as received.
3.
Potassium hydroxide was purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc., and was used as received.
4.
Potassium 2-nitrobenzoate exhibits the following physicochemical properties:
1H NMR
pdf (500 MHz, methanol-
d4) δ: 7.91-7.92 (m, 1 H), 7.64-7.67 (m, 1 H), 7.59-7.61 (m, 1 H), 7.48-7.51 (m, 1 H);
13C NMR
pdf (100 MHz, methanol-
d4) δ: 173.9, 148.0, 138.4, 134.3, 129.61, 129.59, 124.5; Anal. Calcd. for C
7H
4KNO
4: C, 40.97; H, 1.96; N, 6.83. Found: C, 40.69; H, 1.93; N, 6.77.
5.
The apparatus is maintained under an atmosphere of nitrogen during the course of the reaction.
6.
Potassium 2-nitrobenzoate was prepared according to Method A, Procedure A. Avoid contact with skin and eyes. Use only in a chemical fume hood.
7.
(1,10-Phenanthroline)bis(triphenylphosphine)copper(I) nitrate was purchased from Strem Chemicals and was used as received.
8.
Palladium acetylacetonate was purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc. and was used as received.
9.
4-Bromotoluene was purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc. and was used as received.
10.
Mesitylene, purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc., was dried over CaCl
2, and then was distilled from sodium benzophenone ketyl.
11.
The reaction mixture undergoes a gradual color change from dark orange to dark brown.
12.
The reaction can be monitored by quenching small aliquots (0.25 mL) with
HCl (1 N, 2 mL) and extracting them with
ethyl acetate (2 mL). The organic layer is dried over a mixture of MgSO
4 and NaHCO
3 and analyzed by GC. GC analyses were carried out using an HP-1 capillary column (30 m × 0.32 mm) and a time program beginning with 3 min at 100 °C followed by 40 °C/min ramp to 260 °C, then 7 min at this temp. The following retention times are observed for the compounds within the mixture: mesitylene (2.40 min), nitrobenzene (3.66 min), 4-bromotoluene (3.39 min), 4-methyl-2'-nitrobiphenyl (7.35 min). Alternatively, the reaction can be monitored by quenching small aliquots with water and extracting them with a small amount of ethyl acetate. The organic layer is spotted onto an analytical silica gel TLC plate (0.20 mm thickness, obtained from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc.) and eluted with hexane/EtOAc, 9/1 using 254 nm UV light to visualize the spots. The following
Rf-values are observed for the compounds within the mixture: 4-bromotoluene (0.89), 4-methyl-2'-nitrobiphenyl (0.48).
13.
At room temperature, the excess of potassium 2-nitrobenzoate precipitates and is removed in the filtration step, together with the KBr formed during the reaction.
14.
Celite was purchased from Fischer Scientific and was used as received.
15.
The filter cake should be washed until the filtrate is colorless. Washing is necessary to avoid crystallization underneath the fritted filter during the filtration.
16.
The distilled 4-methyl-2'-nitrobiphenyl exhibits the following analytical data:
1H NMR
pdf (500 MHz, CDCl
3) δ: 7.85 (dd,
J = 8.1 and 1.0, 1 H), 7.62 (td,
J = 7.6 and 1.3, 1 H), 7.50-7.45 (m, 2 H), 7.28-7.24 (m, 4 H), 2.43 (s, 3 H);
13C NMR
pdf (126 MHz, CDCl
3) δ: 138.1, 136.2, 134.4, 132.2, 131.9, 129.4, 127.9, 127.7, 124.0, 21.2; IR (neat) cm
−1: 3026 (w), 2920 (w), 2866 (w), 1641 (w), 1565 (w), 1525 (s), 1476 (m), 1355 (s), 1306 (w), 1285 (w), 1187 (w), 1163 (w), 1112 (w), 1092 (w), 1043 (w), 1007 (w), 954 (w), 853 (m), 819 (m), 782 (m), 750 (s); MS (EI, 70 eV)
m/z: 213 (M
+, 100), 196 (52), 185 (48), 168 (76), 152 (62), 139 (24), 129 (23), 115 (35), 63 (17); Anal. Calcd. for C
13H
11NO
2: C, 73.23; H, 5.20; N, 6.57. Found: C, 73.04; H, 5.12; N, 6.91.
17.
2-Acetylbenzoic acid was purchased from Acros Organics and was used as received. Avoid contact with skin and eyes. Use only in a fume hood.
18.
The temperature for the evaporation of the ethanol is crucial. At lower temperatures, the water of neutralization is not removed and crystallization of the resulting salt is irreproducible.
19.
Potassium 2-acetylbenzoate exhibits the following analytical data:
1H NMR
pdf (500 MHz, methanol-
d4) δ: 7.68-7.66 (m, 1 H), 7.47-7.39 (m, 3 H), 2.54 (s, 3 H);
13C NMR
pdf (126 MHz, methanol-
d4) δ: 206.8, 176.2, 141.2 140.5, 131.5, 129.8, 127.7, 30.3; Anal. Calcd. for C
9H
7KO
3: C, 53.45; H, 3.49; Found: C, 53.16; H, 3.18.
20.
Potassium 2-acetylbenzoate was prepared according to Method B, Procedure A.
Avoid contact with skin and eyes. Use only in a fume hood.
22.
1,10-Phenanthroline was purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc., as 1,10-phenanthroline monohydrate. The water of hydration was removed by stirring a solution of the monohydrate in ethyl acetate over anhydrous MgSO
4. The solution was then filtered and the volatiles were removed under reduced pressure.
23.
Bis(diphenylphosphino)methane was purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc. and was used as received.
24.
1-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone was purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc. and dried by removing water as a toluene azeotrope.
25.
Quinoline was purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc. and was dried by removing the water by fractional distillation.
26.
The reaction mixture undergoes a gradual color change from dark orange to dark brown.
27.
The progress of the reaction can be monitored by quenching small aliquots (0.25 mL) with
HCl (1 N, 2 mL) and extracting them with
ethyl acetate (2 mL). The organic layer is dried over a mixture of MgSO
4 and NaHCO
3 and analyzed by GC. GC analyses were carried out using an HP-1 capillary column (30 m × 0.32 mm) and a time program beginning with 3 min at 100 °C followed by 40 °C/min ramp to 260 °C, then 7 min at this temp. The following retention times are observed for the compounds within the mixture: 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (2.99 min), 4-bromotoluene (3.39 min), acetophenone (3.51 min), quinoline (4.97 min) and 2-acetyl-4'-methylbiphenyl (7.15 min). Alternatively, the reaction can be monitored by quenching small aliquots with water and extracting them with a small amount of ethyl acetate. The organic layer is spotted onto an analytical silica gel TLC plate (0.20 mm thickness, obtained from Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc.) and eluted with 10 % ethyl acetate in
n-hexane, using 254 nm UV light to visualize the spots. The following
Rf-values are observed for the compounds within the mixture: 4-bromotoluene (0.89), 2-acetyl-4'-methylbiphenyl (0.44).
28.
At room temperature, the excess potassium 2-acetylbenzoate precipitates and is removed in the filtration step, together with the KBr formed during the reaction.
29.
Acetophenone is removed at 50 °C and 1.0 mmHg.
30.
2-Acetyl-4'-methylbiphenyl exhibits the following physicochemical properties:
1H NMR
pdf (500 MHz, CDCl
3) δ: 7.54-7.48 (m, 2 H), 7.41-7.38 (m, 2 H), 7.24 (broad s, 4 H), 2.41 (s, 3 H), 2.02 (s, 3 H));
13C NMR
pdf (126 MHz, CDCl
3) δ: 205.2, 140.9, 140.5, 137.8, 130.7, 130.2, 129.4, 128.8, 128.7, 127.8, 127.2, 30.5, 21.2; IR (neat) cm
−1: 3022 (w), 1685 (s), 1595 (w), 1560 (w), 1517 (w), 1473 (w), 1441 (w), 1354 (m), 1266 (m), 1231 (m), 1110 (w), 1076 (w), 1041 (w), 1005 (w), 967 (w), 823 (m), 764 (m), 747 (m); MS (EI, 70 eV)
m/z: 210 (M
+, 63), 195 (100), 182 (10), 165 (36). Anal. Calcd. for C
15H
14O: C, 85.68; H, 6.71; Found: C, 85.28; H, 6.72.
31.
The products of homocoupling, 2,2'-diacetylbiphenyl and 4,4'-dimethylbiphenyl were detected by GC/MS.
All hazardous materials should be handled and disposed of in accordance with “Prudent Practices in the Laboratory”; National Academy Press; Washington, DC, 1995.
3. Discussion
To achieve good yields with this method, important precautions have to be taken: Firstly, water and other proton sources have to rigorously be excluded from the reaction medium. This precaution will prevent protonolysis of the arylcopper intermediate under formation of the corresponding arenes. Therefore, the preformed potassium salt has to be dried thoroughly along with all other reagents, or the water inherently formed during the deprotonation step has to be removed carefully by azeotropic distillation.
Because of the high reactivity of the starting 2-nitrobenzoic acid derivatives, the protocol was improved in a number of ways: Only very low catalyst loadings are required for their coupling with a broad variety of aryl bromides and some chlorides (Method A). Moreover, an easy-to-handle, commercially available copper-phenanthroline-phosphine complex can be used as the decarboxylation catalyst. Finally, an inexpensive, non-polar solvent was employed, leading to a simplified work-up procedure: Removal of the solvent and Kugelrohr distillation gives the reaction products in pure form (Table 1). This optimized protocol could easily be scaled up from millimolar to molar quantities without a decrease in yield.
2-Acetylbenzoic acid represents a comparatively difficult substrate to cross-couple as the steric bulk of the acetyl group appears to hinder the cross-coupling step. In this case, the in situ formation of the copper-phenanthroline catalyst and the addition of a palladium-stabilizing ligand are recommended (Method B). This method is applicable to many other ortho-substituted or heterocyclic aromatic carboxylates (Table 2), although some fine-tuning is required to ensure optimal yields. For example, 2-fluorobenzoic acid, a sterically unhindered, moderately reactive derivative, is best coupled in the absence of palladium-stabilizing ligands.
When applying this method to the synthesis of 2-carboxy-substituted biaryl derivatives, the potassium carboxylates can be generated in situ by adding potassium isopropoxide to readily available phthalic anhydride. Again, it is crucial to carefully remove any traces of residual alcohols and water prior to the decarboxylative cross-coupling step, in order to suppress protodecarboxylation.
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