RhIII -Catalyzed Double Dehydrogenative Coupling of Free 1-Naphthylamines with α,β-Unsaturated Esters.

The RhIII -catalyzed, consecutive double C-H oxidative coupling of free 1-naphthylamine and α,β-unsaturated esters through C-H/C-H and C-H/N-H bonds is reported. The one step reaction leads to the formation of biologically important alkylidene-1,2-dihydrobenzo[cd]indoles scaffolds. This efficient process is much more synthetically convenient and useful than others because the starting materials, such as 1-naphthylamine derivatives are readily available and the free amine serves as a directing group.