Lithium/Element Exchange as an Efficient Tool for Accessing Atropo-enriched Biaryls via Arynes

This account documents the development of transition metal-free, aryne-mediated aryl-aryl coupling, the 'ARYNE coupling', which began in 2001 in Lausanne. ortho,ortho'-Di-, tri- and even tetrasubstituted biphenyls have now become accessible on a multi-gram scale. The reaction is perfectly regioselective and the obtained polybromobiphenyls can be submitted to regioselective bromine/lithium interconversions. The access to enantiopure biphenyls is now possible using enantiopure sulfoxides as chiral auxiliaries, which allow for subsequent chemoselective sulfoxide/metal exchange on each atropo-diastereoisomer with configurational stability of the intermediate biaryllithiums. Direct atropo-diastereoselective ARYNE coupling has been reported more recently.