Practical Syntheses of Terrylene Chromophores from Naphthalene and Perylene Building Blocks

A facile and efficient method to synthesize terrylene imides, a unique class of chromophores, and their derivatives from commercially available naphthalene and perylene building blocks is reported. We developed an extremely efficient Suzuki/C-H-arylation coupling cascade with Pd2(dba)3/PCy3 (dba = dibenzylidenacetone, Cy = cyclohexyl) as the catalyst and highly soluble naphthalene derivatives as starting materials. This efficiency allows purification via precipitation and crystallization, avoiding time-consuming column chromatography. For the first time, the highly soluble 3,4,11,12-terrylene tetraester was prepared in gram scale with yields up to 75 % which thus becomes a versatile startin…