Zinc-catalyzed borylation of primary, secondary and tertiary alkyl halides with alkoxy diboron reagents at room temperature

A new catalytic system based on a ZnII NHC precursor has been developed for the cross-coupling reaction of alkyl halides with diboron reagents, which represents a novel use of a Group XII catalyst for C-X borylation. This approach gives borylations of unactivated primary, secondary, and tertiary alkyl halides at room temperature to furnish alkyl boronates, with good functional-group compatibility, under mild conditions. Preliminary mechanistic investigations demonstrated that this borylation reaction seems to involve one-electron processes.