Diversification of Aryl Sulfonyl Compounds through Ligand‐Controlled meta‐ and para‐C−H Borylation.

Aryl sulfones and aryl sulfonamides are of great importance in organic synthesis and medicinal chemistry. Although ortho‐C−H functionalization of aryl sulfonyl compounds has been extensively explored, the functionalization of remote meta‐ and para‐C−H bonds is very rare. Herein, we report a tunable meta‐ and para‐selective C−H borylation of aryl sulfonyl compounds enabled by computationally designed ligands and iridium catalyst. This method is capable of accommodating a broad range of substrates under mild reaction conditions. Gram‐scale preparation can be achieved with iridium catalyst loading as low as 0.1 mol%. As the introduced boronate group can be easily converted into many other groups, our method provides a general solution to installing functional groups at either meta‐ or para‐position of aryl sulfones and aryl sulfonamides with good to excellent selectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]