Mechanisms and Origins of Switchable Chemoselectivity of Ni-Catalyzed C(aryl)-O and C(acyl)-O Activation of Aryl Esters with Phosphine Ligands

Many experiments have shown that nickel with monodentate phosphine ligands favors the C(aryl)-O activation over the C(acyl)-O activation for aryl esters. However, Itami and co-workers recently discovered that nickel with bidentate phosphine ligands can selectively activate the C(acyl)-O bond of aryl esters of aromatic carboxylic acids. The chemoselectivity with bidentate phosphine ligands can be switched back to C(aryl)-O activation when aryl pivalates are employed.To understand the mechanisms and origins of this switchable chemoselectivity, density functional theory (DFT) calculations have been conducted. For aryl esters, nickel with bidentate phosphine ligands cleaves C(acyl)-O and C(aryl)-O bonds via three-centered transition states. The C(acyl)-O activation is more favorable due to the lower bond dissociation energy (BDE) of C(acyl)-O bond, which translates into a lower transition-state distortion energy. However, when monodentate phosphine ligands are used, a vacant coordination site on nickel creates an extra Ni-O bond in the five-centered C(aryl)-O cleavage transition state. The additional interaction energy between the catalyst and substrate makes C(aryl)-O activation favorable. In the case of aryl pivalates, nickel with bidentate phosphine ligands still favors the C(acyl)-O activation over the C(aryl)-O activation at the cleavage step. However, the subsequent decarbonylation generates a very unstable tBu-Ni(II) intermediate, and this unfavorable step greatly increases the overall barrier for generating the C(acyl)-O activation products. Instead, the subsequent C-H activation of azoles and C-C coupling in the C(aryl)-O activation pathway are much easier, leading to the observed C(aryl)-O activation products.