Pinacol Boronates by Direct Arene Borylation with Borenium Cations

Abstract

Borenium does it direct: A boron analogue of the Friedel–Crafts reaction uses inexpensive catecholatoborenium cations that are sufficiently electrophilic to borylate arenes by electrophilic aromatic substitution. The direct arene borylation proceeds with high regioselectivity for a range of anilines, N-heterocycles, and thiophenes. Subsequent one-pot transesterification provides the synthetically useful pinacol boronate esters (see scheme). Detailed facts of importance to specialist readers are published as ”Supporting Information”. Such documents are peer-reviewed, but not copy-edited or typeset. They are made available as submitted by the authors. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.