LETTER 1355 Room-Temperature Copper-Catalyzed Synthesis of Primary Arylamines from Aryl Halides and Aqueous Ammonia SynthesisChuanzhou of Primary Arylamines Tao,*a Weiwei Liu,a Aifeng Lv,b Mingming Sun,a Ying Tian,a Qi Wang,a Jing Zhao*b a School of Chemical Engineering, Huaihai Institute of Technology, Lianyungang 222005, P. R. of China Fax +86(518)85895121; E-mail:
[email protected] b State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P. R. of China Fax +86(25)83592672; E-mail:
[email protected] Received 11 February 2010 In the meantime, Fu et al. reported a mild copper-cata- Abstract: Primary arylamines can be prepared via a copper-cata- lyzed cross-coupling between aryl halides and aqueous ammonia lyzed coupling of aryl boronic acids and aqueous ammo- nia (Scheme 1).6 The reaction proceeds at room using K3PO4 as a base and DMF as a solvent at room temperature. temperature without ligands, bases, or other additives, and Key words: copper, catalysis, cross-coupling, room temperature, aqueous ammonia, primary arylamine many functional groups are tolerated under mild condi- tions. However, the cost and availability of the aryl boron- ic acids, particularly the highly functionalized ones, hampers their applications. Usually aryl halides are pre- Primary arylamines are important intermediates in the ferred substrates because these electrophiles tend to be manufacture of agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, dyes, cheaper and easier to prepare. Thus, we set out to develop pigments, and rubber.1 Their preparation has attracted in- more economical, practical, and efficient protocols for the creasing attention.