Arene C-H activation by electrophilic late transition metals is a vital step in many types of catalyzed aromatic functionalization. Palladium (II) complexes are among the more popular catalysts employed due to their compatibility with a wide variety of substrates and abundance of commercially-available catalyst systems. Coordination of a C-H bond to a vacant Pd(II) site leads to considerable polarization of the C-H bond allowing for deprotonation and cyclometallation. The metal-carbon bond can be installed by a wide variety of bases under catalytic conditions, but to date absolute acidity measurement for the key Pd(II)-arene complex have not been reported. A dual computational/experimental approach towards attempting to measure absolute acidities of Pd(II)-arene C–H bonds will be discussed.

Toward absolute measurements of Pd(π-arene) C–H acidity

255th National Meeting (2018)

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