Silver-catalyzed synthesis of symmetrical diaryl tellurides from arylboronic acids and tellurium

Abstract

We report herein the synthesis of symmetrical tellurides by the reaction of different arylboronic acids with elemental tellurium through a simple methodology using a silver catalyst. In contrast to other methodologies described in the literature, this protocol takes advantage of using Te⁰ for the synthesis of tellurides, skipping the preparation steps of organotellurium compounds as intermediates. The developed method was tolerant to a series of arylboronic acids, obtaining a wide reaction scope using 10 mol% of AgNO₃ as a catalyst, DMSO as a solvent and three equivalents of Te⁰. Tellurides with electron withdrawing and electron donating groups attached to the aryl group at the ortho, meta and para positions were achieved, allowing the study of the influence of these groups at each position. Control experiments were carried out to subsidize a plausible proposed mechanism.