Ferrous Salt-Catalyzed Oxidative Alkenylation of Indoles: Facile Access to 3-Alkylideneindolin-2-Ones

Abstract

The direct oxidative alkenylation of indoles is achieved by ferrous salts under mild conditions, which provides one effective strategy for the synthesis of 3-alkylideneindolin-2-one in a single step. This reaction system features simple and readily available materials, mild conditions, and easy accessibility. The control experiments also demonstrate a radical pathway was involved in the reaction. Moreover, the method performs well on the gram-scale experiment, which indicates that this method enjoys a broad prospect in synthetic chemistry.