Ligand-Enabled Gold-Catalyzed C–P Cross-Coupling Reactions

Herein, we report a ligand-enabled gold-catalyzed C­(sp2)–P cross-coupling of aryl iodides with phosphine oxides to afford triaryl phosphine oxides. The success of this transformation relies on two factors: the crucial role of silver salts in preventing catalyst deactivation through Ag–phosphine oxide complex formation and the use of masked phosphinylating agents. Detailed mechanistic investigations including several control experiments, HRMS analysis, 31P NMR, and DFT studies have been performed to underpin the mechanism.