Borenium-catalysed para-selective borylation of alkylarenes

Abstract

A borenium-based catalytic system for para-selective borylation of mono-alkylbenzenes has been developed using 4-tert-butyl-catecholborane (HBcattBu) as the borylation reagent and (p-tol)OBcattBu as a Brønsted base additive. This study highlights the complementary selectivity of borenium-based system compared to transition-metal catalysts and provides a straightforward approach to accessing para-selective arylboron compounds.