Iodine-catalyzed sp³ C-H bond activation by selenium dioxide: synthesis of diindolylmethanes and di(3-indolyl)selanides.

Abstract

An efficient reaction protocol was developed for the synthesis of several diindolylmethane derivatives via the [Formula: see text] C-H bond activation of aryl methyl ketones by [Formula: see text] and indoles in the presence of catalytic amounts of [Formula: see text] at 80 [Formula: see text] using dioxane as solvent. Unexpectedly, an interesting class of di(3-indolyl)selenide compounds was isolated when the reaction was carried out at room temperature.