Iron carbonyl-mediated parallel solution-phase synthesis of cyclohexadienoic acid amides.

Iron carbonyl-stabilized cations have been employed to develop methodology for carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom formation suitable for the preparation of combinatorial libraries. Different nucleophiles were added to tricarbonyl(cyclohexa-1,3-dienylcarboxylic acid 4-nitro-phenyl ester)iron hexafluorophosphate. Aminolysis, followed by decomplexation, yielded substituted cyclohexadienyl amides of high purity. Carbon, oxygen, and sulfur nucleophiles gave good results, while amine nucleophiles gave products of somewhat lower purity.