A novel palladium-catalyzed arylation-dehydroaromatization reaction: Synthesis of 7-aryltetralones

A new one-pot room-temperature palladium-catalyzed synthesis of 7-aryltetralones was discovered. This tandem process includes a palladium-catalyzed gamma-selective arylation of the enone 4 followed by a dehydrogenation-aromatization of the initial cross-coupling product.