Facile, Catalytic Dehydrocoupling of Phosphines Using β‐Diketiminate Iron(II) Complexes

Abstract

Catalytic dehydrocoupling of primary and secondary phosphines has been achieved for the first time using an iron pre-catalyst. The reaction proceeds under mild reaction conditions and is successful with a range of diarylphosphines. A proton acceptor is not needed for the transformation to take place, but addition of 1-hexene does allow for turnover at 50 °C. The catalytic system developed also facilitates the dehydrocoupling of phenylphosphane and dicyclohexylphosphane. A change in solvent switches off dehydrocoupling to allow hydrophosphination of alkenes.