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Due to their closely matched reactivity, the coupling of two dissimilar ketone enolates to form a 1,4-diketone remains a challenge in organic synthesis. We herein report that umpolung of a ketone trimethylsilyl enol ether (1 equiv) to form a discrete enolonium species, followed by addition of as little as 1.2–1.4 equivalents of a second trimethylsilyl enol ether, provides an attractive solution to this problem. A wide array of enolates may be used to form the 1,4-diketone products in 38 to 74% yield. Due to the use of two TMS enol ethers as precursors, an optimization of the cross-coupling should include investigating the order of addition.

A synthetically useful approach for the direct α‐arylation of carbonyl compounds through a novel oxidative C−C bond activation is reported. This mechanistically unusual process relies on a 1,2‐aryl shift and results in all‐carbon quaternary centers. The transformation displays broad functional‐group tolerance and can in principle also be applied as an asymmetric variant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enolonium species/iodo(III)enolates of carbonyl compounds have been suggested to be intermediates in a wide variety of hypervalent iodine induced chemical transformations of ketones, including α-C−O, α-C−N, α-C−C, and α-carbon-halide bond formation, but they have never been characterized. We report that these elusive umpoled enolates may be made as discrete species that are stable for several minutes at −78 °C, and report the first spectroscopic identification of such species. It is shown that enolonium species are direct intermediates in C−O, C−N, C−Cl, and C−C bond forming reactions. Our results open up chemical space for designing a variety of new transformations. We showcase the ability of enolonium species to react with prenyl, crotyl, cinnamyl, and allyl silanes with absolute regioselectivity in up to 92 % yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their closely matched reactivity, the coupling of two dissimilar ketone enolates to form a 1,4-diketone remains a challenge in organic synthesis. We herein report that umpolung of a ketone trimethylsilyl enol ether (1 equiv) to form a discrete enolonium species, followed by addition of as little as 1.2-1.4 equivalents of a second trimethylsilyl enol ether, provides an attractive solution to this problem. A wide array of enolates may be used to form the 1,4-diketone products in 38 to 74% yield. Due to the use of two TMS enol ethers as precursors, an optimization of the cross-coupling should include investigating the order of addition.