Demonstrates chemoselective benzylic phosphination in toluenes, indicating potential applications in chemicals and materials.
Organophosphorus compounds hold significant importance in materials science, medicinal chemistry, and agrochemicals. However, their syntheses have mainly relied on transition metals and prefunctionalized substrates. To overcome these limitations, we herein report a transition-metal-free, chemoselective benzylic phosphination of toluenes mediated by a heterobimetallic LiN(SiMe₃)₂/Cs₂SO₄ system. This protocol directly activates inert benzylic C-H bonds with good functional group tolerance, circumventing the need for substrate prefunctionalizations. The practicality of this method is demonstrated by gram-scale synthesis and further derivatization of the phosphine products.
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Ma et al. (2026) studied this question.
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