Iron-Catalyzed Borrowing Hydrogen C-Alkylation of Oxindoles Using Alcohols

A general and efficient iron‐catalyzed C‐alkylation of oxindoles has been developed. This borrowing hydrogen approach employs a (cyclopentadienone)iron carbonyl complex (2 mol %) and exhibits a broad reaction scope, allowing benzylic and simple primary and secondary aliphatic alcohols to be employed as alkylating agents. A variety of oxindoles undergo selective mono‐C(3)‐alkylation in good to excellent isolated yields (28 examples, 50‐92% yield, 79% average yield).

Analysis of reaction products from this methodology resulted in the following data:

1H, 19F and 13C NMR raw data files

IR spectra

High-Resolution Mass Spectrography spectra.

Research results based upon these data are puiblished at http://doi.org/10.1002/cssc.201900799