User-Friendly Methylation of Aryl and Vinyl Halides and Pseudohalides with DABAL-Me3

An extremely technically simple cross-methylation of aryl and vinyl halides and pseudohalides using an air-stable adduct of trimethylaluminium with a Pd(0) catalyst supported by commercially available biarylphosphines gives excellent yields of methylated products (mainly >95%). Reactions can be run with either 0.5 mol % catalyst or without requiring the exclusion of atmospheric oxygen or the drying of solvents in some cases. A wide variety of functional groups is tolerated including CN, OH, CO 2 R, CHO and NO 2 .