Use of Highly Active Palladium-Phosphinous Acid Catalysts in Stille, Heck, Amination, and Thiation Reactions of Chloroquinolines

An efficient synthetic route toward a variety of 2,4-disubstituted quinolines has been developed. Alkylation and arylation of 4-chloroquinoline using organolithium reagents proceed with high regioselectivity in position 2 under cryogenic conditions. The intermediate 1,2-dihydro-4-chloroquinoline derivatives are unstable to air and are easily oxidized to the corresponding 2-substituted 4-chloroquinolines in high yields. Highly active palladium-phosphinous acid catalysts POPd, POPd1, and POPd2 have been employed in Stille cross-couplings of quinaldine with arylstannanes and in Heck additions of various 2-substituted 4-chloroquinolines to tert-butyl acrylate. In particular, POPd combines high catalytic activity for cross-coupling reactions with simplicity of use due to its stability to air. Utilizing CsF in POPd-catalyzed Stille couplings further increased the reactivity of arylstannanes, which was attributed to the fluorophilicity of organotin compounds. Basic additives were found to exhibit a significant effect on the yields of the POPd-promoted Heck reactions. In general, dicyclohexylmethylamine affords superior results than NaOAc, Cs₂CO₃, or t-BuOK. POPd was also found to tolerate amine and thiol substrates and proved to promote carbon−heteroatom bond formation of chloroquinoline derivatives with aliphatic and aromatic amines and thiols, respectively.