Tailoring Buchwald-Type Phosphines with Pyrimidinium Betaines as Versatile Aryl Group Surrogates

A derivatization of dialkylbiarylphosphines consisting in the formal replacement of their distal aryl group by a pyrimidinium betaine is reported. Two achiral representatives of this new class of Buchwald-type phosphines have been successfully synthesized through two strategies. The first one is based on a last stage introduction of the phosphino moiety, and the second one consists in a modular, one-pot, three-step procedure starting from an o-bromoaryl phosphine. The resulting phosphines have been coordinated onto gold(I) and palladium(II) centers and have been employed as supporting ligands in Pd-catalyzed Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling of aryl halide substrates.