Direct palladium/copper oxidative cross-coupling of α-methylstyrene with acrylates

Fully palladium/copper catalytic oxidative cross-coupling of acrylates with α-methylstyrene was performed in a DMSO/AcOH (1:1) mixture at 60 °C in the air. This improves previous procedures which employed stoichiometric amounts of copper and oxygen. Thus various acrylates were effectively coupled to α-methylstyrene giving the expected compounds in moderate to good yields (44%–65%) as a mixture of E and Z isomers.