Gold-Catalyzed Direct Arylation

Gently Coupled Linked aryl rings are found in a broad range of commercial chemical products. Currently, the most versatile synthetic route to this motif involves cross-coupling of one ring with a halide substituent to another ring with a boron or metal-based substituent. Recent research has focused on eliminating the need for one or both of these activating substituents, but for the most part, the emerging methods have required high temperatures and high concentrations of one coupling partner. Ball et al. (p. 1644 ) now present a gold catalyst that can couple silyl-activated arenes to unactivated arenes in comparable concentrations at room temperature.