New air-stable planar chiral ferrocenyl monophosphine ligands: Suzuki cross-coupling of aryl chlorides and bromides

reaction: see text] A novel class of planar chiral electron-rich monophosphine ligands has been developed. The modular design allows a short and efficient synthesis of an array of aryl-ferrocenyl derivatives carrying the donating bis(dicyclohexyl)phosphino moiety. These new ligands have successfully been applied in the palladium-catalyzed Suzuki cross-coupling of activated as well as nonactivated aryl chlorides at room temperature. The asymmetric coupling of an aryl bromide and an aryl boronic acid was also tested, giving ees up to 54%.