Sterically demanding and electron-rich 2-(2-methoxynaphth-2-yl)naphthoquinone (3) was selected as a model target compound to examine efficiency of the proposed coupling protocol. Incompatibility of naphthoquinone (1) with the strongly basic conditions does not allow us to use aryl halides and Mizoroki-Heck reaction. On the other hand, arylboronic acids are also readily available, and so we decide to utilise them in the oxidative Heck approach [²] to the quinones ...
