Mechanistic investigations of bipyrimidine-promoted palladium-catalyzed allylic acetoxylation of olefins

Abstract

Several pyridine-like ligands were found to improve Pd(OAc)2-catalyzed allylic oxidation of allylbenzene to cinnamyl acetate by p-benzoquinone in acetic acid. The best ligand examined, bipyrimidine, was used to identify the catalyst precursor for this system, (bipyrimidine)Pd(OAc)2, which was fully characterized. Mechanistic studies suggest the reaction takes place through disproportionation of (bipyrimidine)Pd(OAc)2 to form a bipyrimidine-bridged dimer, which reacts with olefin to form a Pd^II-olefin adduct, followed by allylic C–H activation to produce (η^3-allyl)Pd^II species. The (η^3-allyl)Pd^II intermediate undergoes a reversible acetate attack to generate a Pd^0-(allyl acetate) adduct, which subsequently reacts with p-benzoquinone to release allyl acetate and regenerate (bipyrimidine)Pd(OAc)2. No KIE is observed for the competition experiment between allylbenzene-d0 and allylbenzene-d5 (CD2=CDCD2C6H5), suggesting that allylic C–H activation is not rate-determining. Catalytic allylic acetoxylations of other terminal olefins as well as cyclohexene were also effected by (bipyrimidine)Pd(OAc)2.