Palladacycle-Catalyzed Decarboxylative Coupling of Alkynyl Carboxylic Acids with Aryl Chlorides under Air

A highly efficient and practical protocol for palladacycle-catalyzed decarboxylative coupling of alkynyl carboxylic acids with aryl chlorides was developed. The reaction could proceed smoothly in air within 3 h under optimized reaction conditions (1 mol % of palladacycle, 4 mol % of Xphos, 2.0 equiv of K₂CO₃ in xylene/H₂O), affording the corresponding internal alkynes in mostly good to excellent yields. Remarkably, this result represents the first successful examples of this type of decarboxylative cross-coupling using electron-poor, electron-neutral and even inactive sterically hindered electron-rich aryl chlorides as the starting materials.