Palladium-Catalyzed Environmentally Benign Acylation

Recent trends in research have gained an orientation toward developing efficient strategies using innocuous reagents. The earlier reported transition-metal-catalyzed carbonylations involved either toxic carbon monoxide (CO) gas as carbonylating agent or functional-group-assisted ortho sp2 C–H activation (i.e., ortho acylation) or carbonylation by activation of the carbonyl group (i.e., via the formation of enamines). Contradicting these methods, here we describe an environmentally benign process, [Pd]-catalyzed direct carbonylation starting from simple and commercially available iodo arenes and aldehydes, for the synthesis of a wide variety of ketones. Moreover, this method comprises direct coupling of iodoarenes with aldehydes without activation of the carbonyl and also without directing group assistance. Significantly, the strategy was successfully applied to the synthesis n-butylphthalide and pitofenone.