Approaches to catalyst discovery. New carbon–heteroatom and carbon–carbon bond formation

Studies on the palladium-catalyzed formation of aryl amines, aryl ethers and a-aryl carbonyl compounds from aryl halides are reported. These studies range from synthetic methodology, to detailed mechanistic analysis, to new methods one can use to screen for catalytic covalent bond formation. Improved methods for formation of aryl ethers and room temperature amination chemistry have resulted from a mechanistic understanding of the reaction.