Decarbonylative heck olefination of enol esters: Salt-free and environmentally friendly access to vinyl arenes

Thank you, no salt on the side. In this variant of the Heck olefination, enol esters serve as environmentally friendly synthetic equivalents of aryl halides. These reactants, in turn, are available from a waste-free synthesis from carboxylic acids and propyne. Thus, a salt-free overall process has been devised for preparing vinyl arenes from a variety of aromatic carboxylic acids.