Concise synthetic routes for diphenylacetylene from tetrachloroethylene using Suzuki coupling reaction followed by treatment with n-butyllithium

Abstract

We wish to report a new synthetic approach for diphenylacetylene in which tetrachloroethylene was reacted with phenylboronic acid in the presence of Pd catalyst, followed by a workup procedure to provide the crude product, which was then allowed to react with n-butyllithium via the halogen lithium exchange of Cl atom and loss of Li and Cl atoms to afford the desired diphenylacetylene in good yield.