Explorations in aromatic fluorine chemistry and transition metal-catalyzed carbon-carbon bond forming processes

Two projects were examined in this thesis; the first involved the synthesis and applications of aromatic fluorinated compounds both as biological targets as well as ligands in metal catalysis. Nucleophilic aromatic substitution was found to regioselectively place oxygen, carbon and phosphine based nucleophiles on the aromatic scaffolds thus allowing access to a library of modified naphthols and binaphthols. A library of oxygen and carbon based mono- and bis-substituted 1-bromonaphthalene derivatives were prepared and used in arylation of cyclohexaneimine. Nucleophilic ring opening of the corresponding aziridines yielded small molecules that structurally resemble PDE4 inhibitors of interest.; Borane-protected dicyclohexylphosphine was used as a nucleophile on 2-methoxynapthalene and benzyl protected F4BINOL to generate a new class of phosphine ligands. Selenium-phosphorus coupling constants showed that the naphthalene-derived ligand had more Nucleophilic character than triphenyl phosphine. The catalyst was used to form Suzuki products from aryl boronic acids and aryl halides under moderate reaction conditions and in good yields.; The second project dealt with metal catalyzed carbon-carbon bond forming reactions of cyclic enamides. The enamides were prepared via electrochemical alcoxylation of the corresponding amide followed by elimination in presence of catalytic amount of acid in good yields. Intramolecular heck reaction in the presence of BINAP/Pd2(dba)3 resulted in fused heterocyclic ring systems. It was discovered that in the presence of allyl acetate or allyl bromide, a further allylation reaction occurred to generate a seven-membered ring fused with the heterocyclic ring.