Highly efficient palladium precatalysts of homoscorpionate bispyrazolyl ligands for the more challenging Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling of aryl chlorides

Highly efficient palladium precatalysts {[RN{-(CH2)(n)-pz(2)(3,5-Me)}(2)]PdCl2}(m) [m = n = 1; R = 2,6-Me2C6H3 (1), 2,4,6-Me3C6H2 (2), CH2Ph (3) and m = n = 2; R = CH2Ph (4)] of a series of homoscorpionate bispyrazolyl ligands for the Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling of the more challenging aryl chloride substrates are reported. In particular, the palladium 1-4 precatalysts carried out the Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling of a wide variety of aryl chloride substrates bearing electron withdrawing, electron donating and heteroaryl substituents. Remarkably enough, the molecular structure determination of the 1-4 precatalysts by X-ray diffraction studies revealed the presence of anagostic [C-H center dot center dot center dot Pd] type interactions in the mononuclear 1-3 complexes of methylene bridged bispyrazolyl ligands whereas the ethylene bridged analog 4 yielded an interesting dimeric 20-membered macrometallacyclic complex devoid of any such interaction.