Synthesis of molecular tweezers bearing pentafluorophenyl and several pendant aryl groups: Effective application of the modified Suzuki–Miyaura coupling reaction

A molecular tweezer bearing two pentafluorophenyl groups 2b and its o-methylated aryl homologue 2c were newly synthesized by the slight modification of the known procedure. The low yield in the introduction of pentafluorophenyl group to the precursor dibromide 6 was improved by application of the modified Suzuki–Miyaura coupling reaction using C6F5B(OH)2 with Pd2(dba)3/P(t-Bu)3/CsF/Ag2O catalytic system, which was recently developed by us.