An efficient base-free N-arylation of imidazoles and amines with arylboronic acids using copper-exchanged fluorapatite

The facile N-arylation of imidazoles and amines with arylboronic acids were catalyzed by heterogeneous basic copper fluorapatite (CuFAP) in methanol at room temperature. The procedure was found to work well, with a variety of imidazoles and amines affording good to excellent yields of N-arylimidazoles and N-arylamines with reusability of the catalyst.