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

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 Te 0 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 AgNO 3 as a catalyst, DMSO as a solvent and three equivalents of Te 0 . 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. The synthesis of symmetrical tellurides from different arylboronic acids and elemental tellurium using AgNO 3 as a catalyst was performed.