Rapid and Modular Access to Vinyl Cyclopropanes Enabled by Air-stable Palladium(I) Dimer Catalysis.

Abstract

While vinyl cyclopropanes are valuable functional groups in drugs or natural products as well as established precursors to trigger a rich variety of synthetic transformations, their reactive nature can make their installation via direct catalytic approaches challenging. We herein present a modular access to (di)vinyl cyclopropanes under very mild conditions and full conservation of stereochemistry, allowing access to the cis or trans cyclopropane- as well as E or Z vinyl-stereochemical relationships. Our protocol relies on air-stable dinuclear PdI catalysis, which enables rapid (<30 min) and selective access to a diverse range of vinyl cyclopropane motifs at room temperature, even on gram scale.