Water mediated synthesis of dialkylphosphine oxides from white phosphorus and N-(acyloxy)phthalimides

Abstract

The multicomponent synthesis of dialkylphosphine oxides from P4 without a chlorination step is reported. With the use of N-(acyloxy)phthalimides as the alkylation reagents, H2O as the oxygen source, tris(2,2'-bipyridine)ruthenium dichloride as a photocatalyst, 2,6-lutidine as a reducing agent, and N,N-dimethylacetamide as a solvent, the reactions are performed under green light irradiation, yielding the desired products in moderate to good yields. Notably, this catalytic system is also capable of synthesizing α-hydroxy phosphine oxides from P4 inone-pot. These two step-economic approaches, which directly utilizes P4 as the P-atom source, avoids the traditional chlorination stage and oxidation processes.