Digitized Honors Theses (2002-2017)

Date of Award

5-2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

BS

Department

Chemistry

Faculty Mentor

Larry Yet, Ph.D.

Advisor(s)

David Forbes,Ph.D., James Davis, Jr., Ph.D.

Abstract

The metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions in synthetic organic chemistry have sky-rocketed exponentially since the monumental discoveries from the laboratories of Professors Akira Suzuki, Richard Heck, and Ei-ichi Negishi, recipients of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Cross-coupling reactions are regularly employed in the syntheses of various carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds such as C-N, C-P, C-O, and C-S and in the preparation of carbocyclic and heterocyclic single ring or fused ring systems. In the palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions, there are several key mechanistic steps during this process where the final reductive elimination is the rate-determining step and "ligands" can facilitate this key reductive elimination step in a catalytic fashion. Successful "ligands" can include electron-donating bulky phosphine containing compounds. Imidazo[x,y-a]pyridine structures are called "privileged structures" in medicinal chemistry and our group is interested in utilizing "privileged structures" from the medicinal chemistry literature as viable "ligands" in future cross-coupling reactions. The overall successful syntheses of various phosphorus imidazo[x,y-a]pyridine ligands follows a general synthetic route ofhalogenation of the core imidazo[x,y-a]pyridine scaffold with subsequent palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of the halogenated intermediate with dialkyl- and diphenylphosphines. The core imidazo[x.y-a]pyridine intermediates could be synthesized from precursors such as imidazo[ 1,5-a ]pyridine, imidazo[ 1,2-a ]pyridine, 2-aminopyridines, and arylacetylenes.

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