Nickel-catalyzed direct difluoromethylation of aryl boronic acids with BrCF₂H

A nickel-catalyzed direct difluoromethylation of aryl boronic acids has been developed for the first time, demonstrating good efficiency, mild conditions, and good functional-group compatibility. The key to success is the combination of different kinds of readily available nitrogen and phosphine ligands with a nickel source, which can generate a variety of easily tunable catalysts in situ to promote the difluoromethylation of a broad scope of aryl boronic acids.