Nickel-Catalyzed Reductive 2-Pyridination of Aryl Iodides with Difluoromethyl 2-Pyridyl Sulfone.

A novel nickel-catalyzed reductive cross-coupling between aryl iodides and difluoromethyl 2-pyridyl sulfone (2-PySO2CF2H) enables C(sp2)-C(sp2) bond formation through selective C(sp2)-S bond cleavage, which demonstrates the new reactivity of 2-PySO2CF2H reagent. This method employs readily available nickel catalyst and sulfones as cross-electrophile coupling partners, providing facile access to biaryls under mild reaction conditions without pregeneration of arylmetal reagents.