Hiroyuki Kitano, Hideto Ito,* Kenichiro Itami*
Org. Lett. 2018, 20, 2428–2432. DOI: 10.1021/acs.orglett.8b00775
Highlighted as Most read article (7th May, 2018)

The first palladium-catalyzed esterification of carboxylic acids with aryl iodides is described. A palladium-based catalytic system consisting of IBn^F (1,3-bis((pentafluorophenyl)methyl)imidazole-2-ylidene) ligand was found to significantly accelerate the aryl–O bond-forming esterification reaction. A series of aryl iodides and carboxylic acids undergoes a palladium-catalyzed coupling reaction to provide the corresponding aryl esters in moderate to good yields. In addition, sterically hindered aryl iodides and carboxylic acids were well-tolerated yielding the corresponding aryl esters.