Parallel and combinatorial liquid-phase synthesis of alkylbiphenyls using pentaerythritol support.

Unfunctionalized alkylbiphenyls were fabricated by a parallel and combinatorial synthesis using pentaerythritol as a tetrapodal soluble support for a sulfonate-based traceless multifunctional linker system. Nickel N-heterocyclic carbene-catalyzed reactions of pentaerythritol tetrakis(biphenylsulfonate)s with primary alkylmagnesium bromides generated the alkylbiphenyl derivatives by desulfitative cleavage/cross-coupling of the C-S bond without any "memory" of the attachment on the support. Though the reactions were completed with sufficient yields in 12 h at room temperature, even with only 1.5 equiv of nucleophiles, they still retained the benefits of facile isolation observed in polymer-supported reactions.