Copper-Catalyzed Synthesis of Substituted Quinazolines from Benzonitriles and 2-Ethynylanilines via Carbon–Carbon Bond Cleavage Using Molecular Oxygen

A copper-catalyzed process for the synthesis of substituted quinazolines from benzonitriles and 2-ethynylanilines using molecular oxygen (O2) as sole oxidant is described. The mild catalytic system enabled the effective cleavage of the C–C triple bond and construction of new C–N and C–C bonds in one operation. Furthermore, the compound N,N-dimethyl-4-(2-(4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl)quinazolin-4-yl)aniline (3dj) exhibited obvious aggregation-induced emission phenomenon, and the fluorescence quantum yield (ΦF,film) and lifetime (τfilm) were measured to be 45.5% and 5.8 ns in thin films state, respectively.