Arylation of Terminal Alkynes by Aryl Iodides Catalyzed by a Parts-per-Million Loading of Palladium Acetate

Arylation of terminal alkynes (16 varieties) by aryl iodides (28 varieties) was achieved with a mol ppm loading level of palladium catalyst, where a variety of functional groups including heteroarenes were tolerated. Thus, the arylations were carried out in the presence of palladium acetate at ppm loadings and potassium carbonate in ethanol at 80 degrees C to give the corresponding internal alkynes in good to excellent yields. Synthesis of 2-phenyl-3-(phenylalkynyl)benzofuran was achieved by iterative use of the alkyne arylation under mol ppm catalytic conditions. Reaction-rate analysis, transmission electron microscopic (TEM) examination of the reaction mixture, and mercury-amalgamation test were performed to gain insight into the active species of the highly active ppm catalytic species. TEM examination of the reaction mixture revealed that palladium nanoparticles were generated in situ under the reaction conditions, and their cluster size was variable during the catalytic reaction. A variation in size of palladium particles suggested that the composition decomposition process of Pd aggregates should take place in situ via monomeric palladium(0) species and/or fine palladium(0) clusters, which might be real catalytic species in this reaction.