Proton abstraction mechanism for the palladium-catalyzed intramolecular arylation.

Under the usual conditions, the Pd-catalyzed arylation does not involve an electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction. On the basis of DFT calculations, we propose a mechanism for the Pd-catalyzed arylation that involves a proton abstraction by a carbonate or related ligand and that provides a satisfactory explanation for the experimental data.