Palladium‐Catalyzed Acyl Suzuki–Miyaura Coupling from Carboxylic Acids In Situ Activated by HATU: An Efficient Way to Ketones Laid by Nitrogen Coordination

A palladium‐catalyzed acyl Suzuki–Miyaura coupling between carboxylic acids and organoboronic acids has been developed, employing hexafluorophosphate azabenzotriazole tetramethyl uronium as an in situ activator. Using Pd 2 (dba) 3 /PCy 3 as the catalyst and K 2 CO 3 as the base, the reaction accommodates a broad range of both aliphatic and aromatic carboxylic acids. Controlled experiments and density functional theory calculations reveal that the pyridine nitrogen plays a critical role in the catalytic cycle.