Facile,Catalytic Dehydrocoupling of Phosphines Using β‐Diketiminate Iron(II) Complexes

Catalytic dehydrocoupling of primary and secondary phosphines has been achieved for the first time using an iron pre‐catalyst. The reaction proceeds under mild reaction conditions and is successful with a range of diarylphosphines. A proton acceptor is not needed for the transformation to take place, but addition of 1‐hexene does allow for turnover at 50 °C. The catalytic system developed also facilitates the dehydrocoupling of phenylphosphane and dicyclohexylphosphane. A change in solvent switches off dehydrocoupling to allow hydrophosphination of alkenes.