An alkoxide-catalyzed reduction of benzolactams to isoindoles with silanes was realized. With t-BuOK as the catalyst and Ph2SiH2 as the reductant, a series of benzolactams containing different functional groups were reduced to the corresponding isoindoles, which could be captured by N-phenyl maleimide to form Diels–Alder products in moderate to good yields. Deuterium labeling studies and the hydrosilylation of benzolactam in DMF indicated that the deprotonation of benzolactams took place at C3 potion during the reduction.

Triphenylphosphine and salicylaldimine could be used as a mixed ligand system to obtain a high catalytic activity for palladium catalyzed diarylation of primary anilines with unactivated aryl chlorides by the synergistic effect of ligands. The activity and selectivity of the catalytic system could be improved by modifying the structure of salicylaldimine. In refluxing o-xylene, PdCl2(Ph3P)2 with 2,5-ditrifluoromethyl N-phenylsalicylaldimine as a coligand shows high efficiency for the diarylation of various anilines. The catalytic system shows good toleration for the steric hindrance of the substrates. The facile catalytic system works as well on the multiple arylation of 1,1′-biphenyl- 4,4′-diamine with aryl chlorides to afford N,N,N′,N′-tetraaryl-1,1′-biphenyl-4,4′-diamines which are important intermediates of organic light emitting diode (OLED) hole transport materials.

Palladium-catalyzed coupling reactions of aryl halides and phenols are described employing the bulky and electron-rich MOP-type ligands. When K3PO4 was used as base and toluene as solvent, the catalyst system exhibited high efficiency for the coupling reaction of the activated aryl halides. When NaH was used as base and o-xylene as solvent, unactivated aryl halides can be used as substrates.