Pd-Catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura Cross-Coupling Reaction in Glycerol Using KOH as Base and Glycerol-Triethanolamine Deep Eutectic Solvent under Inorganic Base-Free Conditions

Glycerol and glycerol-triethanolamine deep eutectic solvent are both environmentally benign, cost-effective, and practical solvents for the Pd-catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling of aryl halides with arylboronic acids. Utilizing KOH as base, the reaction in glycerol proceeded smoothly with low catalyst loadings (up to 0.5 mol% of PdCl₂(PPh₃)₂) providing excellent yields (up to 99%) of the cross-coupling products, which can be readily extracted with hexane. However, the recyclability of the glycerol medium containing the catalyst is limited to a few cycles. Furthermore, it was explored the use of chlorodiphenylphosphine as a pre-ligand. Although glycerol phosphinite was not generated in situ, PPh₂Cl proved to be an excellent pre-ligand, yielding the coupling product with a 98% yield. Compared to glycerol, glycerol-triethanolamine deep eutectic solvent (TEOA:G DES) proves to be a superior solvent for the cross-coupling reaction. In addition, the presence of amine group in the solvent allowed to obtain an inorganic base-free cross-coupling protocol. Aryl bromides and aryl boronic acids containing both electron releasing and attracting functional groups can be coupled without requiring the addition of any further base, affording the biphenyl products in moderate to good yields. The cross-coupling products can be easily isolated by extraction with hexane. Moreover, we observed the formation of triethanolamine phenylboronate during the reaction. The triethanolamine boronate was subsequently synthesized through the condensation of phenylboronic acid with triethanolamine and fully characterized. ¹¹B nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy confirmed the coordination of the nitrogen to the boron atom of the triethanolamine boronate.

Keywords:
Suzuki-Miyaura; cross-coupling; base-free; glycerol; triethanolamine; deep eutectic solvent