Tatsuya Morofuji

A new approach for electrooxidative coupling of aromatic compounds and primary alkylamines bearing a functional group such as a hydroxyl group and an amino group was developed. The key to the success of the transformation is heterocydization of functional primary alkylamines. Treatment of primary alkylamines bearing a functional group with nitriles or their equivalents gives the corresponding heterocycles. The electrochemical oxidation of aromatic substrates in the presence of the heterocycles followed by chemical reaction under nonoxidative conditions gave the desired coupling products.

A new method for metal-free intramolecular C-H amination has been developed. Electrochemical oxidation of 2-pyrimidyloxybenzenes and 2-pyrimidylthiobenzenes, which can be easily prepared from phenols and thiophenols, respectively, followed by the treatment of the resulting pyrimidinium ions with piperidine gives 2-aminobenzoxazoles and 2-aminobenzothiazoles, respectively.

Dendronized polystyrene having peripheral bromo groups was prepared from the dendronization of unfunctionalized polystyrene with dendritic diarylcarbenium ions bearing peripheral bromo groups using the "cation pool" method. The palladium-catalyzed amination of the peripheral bromo groups with diarylamine gave dendronized polystyrene equipped with peripheral triarylamines, which exhibited two sets of reversible redox peaks in the cyclic voltammetry curves.

A method for the C-N coupling of imidazoles based on electrooxidative C-H functionalization of aromatic and benzylic compounds has been developed. The key to the success is the formation of protected imidazolium ions as initial products, avoiding overoxidation. Deprotection under nonoxidative conditions affords N-substituted imidazoles. Various functional groups are compatible with the present transformation. To demonstrate the power of the method, a P450 17 inhibiter and an antifungal agent having N-substituted imidazole structures were synthesized.