Abstract:
A facile and general three-step synthetic route towards unsymmetrical 9-arylxanthenes has been developed. The reaction sequence involves nucleophilic substitution reaction of commercially available 2-fluorobenzaldehydes with arenoxides, Grignard reaction of the resulting 2-arenoxybenzaldehydes with arylmagnesium bromides followed by 10 mol% FeCl3 catalyzed intramolecular diarylmethylation of the resulting carbinols. This strategy was extended to access symmetrical as well as unsymmetrical 9-arylthioxanthenes.
