Silver‐Catalysed Hydroarylation of Highly Substituted Styrenes

Abstract

Hydroarylation is an effective strategy to rapidly increase the complexity of organic structures by transforming flat alkene moieties into three‐dimensional frameworks. Many strategies have already been developed to achieve the hydroarylation of styrenes, however most of these reports examine the hydroarylation of unpolar, β‐mono‐ or β‐unsubstituted styrenes, while exploring mainly electron‐rich benzene nucleophiles. Herein we report a mild and general catalytic system for the selective hydroheteroarylation of multiply substituted styrenes and heteroaromatic styrenes. Mechanistic analysis of the reaction led to the discovery of commercially available 2,2’:5’,2’’‐terthiophene as a key reagent.