Palladium/phosphite catalyst systems for efficient cross coupling of aryl bromides and chlorides with phenylboronic acid

The Suzuki reaction of aryl bromides is efficiently catalyzed by palladium/ phosphite complexes generated in situ. The influence of ligand, base, and different additives is examined. The process tolerates various functional groups and catalyst turnover numbers up to 820,000 are obtained even with deactivated aryl bromides. For the first time it is shown that palladium/phosphite complexes also catalyze efficiently the Suzuki reaction of aryl chlorides.