A three-step process to facilitate the annulation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

A new efficient three-step process to annulate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) has been developed, providing access to PAHs with saturated rings that under current chemical methods would be difficult to produce in an efficient manner. This method relies on a palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction of various brominated PAHs with cyclohexanone to yield α-arylated ketones, which are converted to regiospecific vinyl triflates and cyclized by a palladium-catalyzed intramolecular arene-vinyl triflate coupling to produce PAHs with incorporated saturated rings or "tetrahydroindeno-annulated" PAHs.