Nickel-Catalyzed Reversible Functional Group Metathesis between Aryl Nitriles and Aryl Thioethers

We describe a new functional group metathesis between aryl nitriles and aryl thioethers. The catalytic manifold nickel/dcype is essential to achieve this fully reversible transformation in good to excellent yields. Furthermore, the cyanide and thiol-free reaction showed high functional-group tolerance and great efficiency for late-stage derivatization of commercial molecules. Finally, synthetic applications demonstrated its versatility and utility in multistep synthesis.