Efficient and Selective Debromination of vic-Dibromides to Alkenes with NbCl5/Indium System

The debromination of vic-dibromides to alkenes is a valuable synthetic transformation in organic chemistry as a double bond protection-deprotection strategy.1 Accordingly, a good number of methodologies have been developed for the debromination of vic-dibromides to alkenes.2 However, many of these methods lack the desired chemoselectivity when other reducible functional groups are present and often require long reaction times, or involve elevated temperatures. As a result, there still exists a search for new improved methods for this conversion. The chemical reactivity of NbCl5/M system (M = Zn, Mg, Al) has been the subject of considerable interest and the reducing ability of these systems has been extensively studied.3 Recently, it has been reported that NbCl5/Zn system is used as a reagent for reducing sulf-oxides, epoxides, and amine N-oxides.4 Because indium an