UCLA

This dissertation describes the study of metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions to construct carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds. The key feature of much of this work is the use of inexpensive Ni and Fe catalysts to enable the coupling of unconventional electrophilic substrates, specifically aryl O-sulfamates and O-carbamates. The ability to use O-sulfamates and O-carbamates in catalytic processes is notable, as these substrates are readily derived from phenols and can be used for directed arene functionalization.

Chapter one provides a summary of the efforts towards using alcohol-based solvents for the Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction. Emphasis is placed on the cross-coupling of heterocycles, which are commonly encountered in natural product synthesis and in the pharmaceutical sector.

Chapters two, three, and four describe carbon-nitrogen bond forming reactions. Chapter two pertains to the nickel-catalyzed amination of sulfamates, which culminated in the synthesis of the antibacterial drug, linezolid. Chapter three covers the amination of aryl O-carbamates and their use in sequential functionalization/site-selective cross-couplings. Chapter four describes a more user-friendly variant of the amination reaction, which relies on a bench-stable Ni(II) precatalyst, rather than a more commonly used Ni(0) precatalyst.

Chapters five, six, and seven focus on carbon-carbon bond formation via Fe-, Ni- and Pd-mediated processes. Chapter five pertains to iron-catalyzed couplings of sulfamates and carbamates to generate sp2-sp3 carbon-carbon bonds. This method can be used to assemble sterically-congested frameworks. Chapter six describes the nickel-catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura reactions of halides and phenol derivatives in `green' solvents, which was applied to the preparative scale assembly of bis(heterocycles) using low nickel catalyst loadings. Chapter seven pertains to the acetylation of arenes using palladium catalysis, which provides a simple and efficient means for the construction of a variety of aryl methyl ketones.