Catalytic Formation of Ketones from Unactivated Esters through Rhodium Chelation-Assisted C–O Bond Activation

A new method for building aryl aryl ketones containing heterocyclic rings through chelation-assisted C–O bond activation catalyzed by a rhodium complex has been developed. In this reaction, methyl quinoline-8-carboxylate, methyl quinoxaline-5-carboxylate, and their derivatives were reacted with an excess amount of a substituted phenyl boronic acid in the presence of a rhodium­(I) complex to give substituted phenyl­(quinolin-8-yl)­methanone, phenylquinoxalin-5-ylmethanone, and their derivatives in medium to high yields. The current method offers a highly favorable synthetic pathway to efficiently build related drugs with an 8-benzoylquinoline core structure. This method may prove especially valuable for medicinal chemists for the late-stage introduction of versatile ketone moieties into complex scaffolds for diversity-oriented synthetic strategies