Dipartimento di Chimica Organica e Industriale dell’Università, Parco Area

delle Scienze, 17/A, 43100 Parma, Italy

[email protected] Abstract Alkylaromatic palladacycles, formed in situ by reaction of palladium acetate with a strained and rigid cycloolefin such as norbornene and an orthosubstituted aryl iodide, allow the selective arylation of the aromatic ring by a second molecule of aryl iodide with subsequent norbornene expulsion. Coupling the resulting complex with appropriate reagents liberates the organic product thus regenerating the catalyst. Introduction Selective aromatic functionalization has been a permanent object of research since the ninenteenth century. Catalysis has offered a powerful tool to achieve this goal. Over the years we have worked out a complex catalytic system consisting of an inorganic compound such as a palladium salt and an organic molecule containing a strained double bond such as norbornene (1, 2). We have seen that these two catalysts cooperatively react with an aromatic iodide, an alkyl iodide and a terminal olefin. The following equation reports an example (L = solvent and/or olefin) (3).