Revisiting Claims of the Iron-, Cobalt-, Nickel-, and Copper-Catalyzed Suzuki Biaryl Cross-Coupling of Aryl Halides with Aryl Boronic Acids

Intrigued by recent reports on the surprisingly excellent activity of a range of cobalt-, iron-, copper-, and nickel-based catalysts in the Suzuki biaryl cross-coupling of simple aryl boronic acids with aryl halides, we undertook a reexamination of the syntheses of representative examples of the reported precatalysts and their application to the catalytic reaction. A reported PNP−Fe pincer complex proved to be a mixture of starting materials; a mono-Schiff base cobalt complex in fact the bis-ligated adduct and a monomeric copper(II) PNP–pincer complex a di- or oligomeric copper(I) species. In our hands, neither these complexes nor any other of the selected precatalysts investigated showed any activity in a Suzuki cross-coupling reaction of an electronically activated aryl bromide with phenyl boronic acid. Meanwhile, switching the nucleophile to the BuLi-activated phenyl boronic pinacol ester gave some promising activity with cobalt precatalysts.