A green method to synthesize cinnolines by 6π electrocyclic reaction with alkenyl amines and TBN has been developed.

The efficient design and synthesis of new tert-butoxycarbonyl (t-Boc) and t-Boc-removed diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) polymers with regioregular conjugated backbones via a new route of combining random copolymerization and the classical t-Boc precursor approach are reported. The resulting new type of DPP polymer, named P(40/1)-H, is found to possess good solubility, film-forming ability, and reasonable optoelectronic properties. Importantly, it displays a significantly improved field-effect mobility (∼0.91 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹) as compared to the recognized reference polymer P(100/0) (∼0.56 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹), which indicates partially removing the long branched alkyl side chains of a regioregular conjugated backbone based DPP polymer is an alternative new strategy of molecular design for enhancing field-effect carrier mobility.

The mechanism of selective C–H cyanation of 2-phenylpyridine catalyzed by CuBr was investigated using the DFT method at the B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) level, and the integral equation formalism polarized continuum model (IEFPCM) was applied to simulate the solvent effect. The computational results suggested that 2-phenylacetonitrile can convert into benzoyl cyanide under O₂ conditions via two paths (a and b), and also, 2-phenylacetonitrile can first react with the O₂ ⁻ anion to yield 2-hydroxy-2-phenylacetonitrile, and then 2-hydroxy-2-phenylacetonitrile goes through oxidative dehydrogenation to yield benzoyl cyanide via four different paths (c, d, e and f). The other part reaction of the conversion of 2-phenylpyridine to 2-(pyridin-2-yl)-benzonitrile catalyzed by CuBr can go through three paths (g, h and i) which involve the coordination of CN⁻ and the N atom of 2-phenylpyridine with Cu cations, and then the processes of addition and oxydehydrogenation reactions lead to the final product 2-(pyridin-2-yl)benzonitrile. In addition, another path (j) without the participation of CuBr could also occur. The results could provide valuable insights into these types of interactions and related ones.

The mechanism of Csp³–H functionalization between ethyl 2-(p-tolylamino)acetate and phenylethylene initiated by tris(4-bromophenyl)aminium hexachloroantimonate was elaborated based on DFT calculations.