Palladium-Catalyzed Domino Conversion of Aryl–Thianthreniums with Anhydrides: Rapidly Building Highly Functionalized Fluorenones

As a class of rising electrophilic coupling reagents, aryl–thianthreniums (aryl-TTs) have been gaining immense attention. Herein, a novel palladium-catalyzed domino annulation of aryl-TTs with anhydrides is proposed to rapidly assemble a collection of highly functionalized fluorenones. This finding presents an innovative reaction pattern of aryl-TTs wherein the domino annulation version is first involved. Heavily compared with the existing conversions with aryl-TTs, this identified process successively functions as four aryl C–H bonds.