Gold-Catalyzed Direct Alkynylation of Azulenes

Abstract

A novel catalytic method for the direct C-H alkynylation of azulenes is developed. The gold catalyzed functionalization of this special carbacycle is achieved with hypervalent iodonium reagent TIPS-EBX under mild reaction conditions. With the aid of the developed procedure, several TIPS alkynylated azulene derivatives were synthesized bearing important functional groups for further functionalization.