Overcoming Limitations in Decarboxylative Arylation via Ag-Ni Electrocatalysis

A useful protocol for achieving decarboxylative cross coupling (DCC) of redox-active esters (RAE, isolated or generated in situ) and halo(hetero)arenes is reported. This pragmatically focused study employs a unique Ag-Ni electrocatalytic platform to overcome numerous limitations that have plagued this strategically powerful transformation. In its optimized form coupling partners can be combined in a surprisingly simple way: open to the air, technical grade solvents, an inexpensive ligand and Ni source, substoichiometric AgNO3, proceeding at room temperature with a simple commercial potentiostat. Most importantly all of the results are placed into context by benchmarking with state-of-the-art methods. Applications are presented that simplify synthesis and rapidly enable access to challenging chemical space. Finally, adaptation to multiple scale regimes, ranging from parallel mg-based synthesis to decagram recirculating flow is presented