Addition reaction of 2-phenylbenzoic acid onto unactivated olefins catalyzed by Ru(II)–xantphos catalysis

Ru(II)–xantphos catalysis is found to be effective for the addition reaction of 2-phenylbenzoic acid onto unactivated olefins. Thus, the reactions of 2-phenylbenzoic acid and unactivated olefins are carried out in the presence of 5 mol % of Ru(II)–xantphos catalysis in refluxing CHCl3 for 48 h to afford the corresponding esters in 40–95% yield. The control experiments indicate that the influence of TfOH for Brønsted acid catalyst was vanishingly small in our new catalytic system.