We commenced our investigation on the reaction with
N-(2-formylphenyl)benzenesulfonamide (
1a) and (3, 3-difluorocycloprop-1-en-1-yl)benzene (
2a) in the presence of 5 mol% of [Cp*RhCl
2]
2 and 2.0 equiv. of CsOAc in DCE at 60 ℃ under N
2 atmosphere (
Table 1). A preliminary attempt gave desired product
3a in 20% yield, and its structure was unambiguously confirmed by NMR spectra and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis (for details, see Supporting information). Further studies to improve the efficiency of this transformation were conducted. Swapping R substituents on the nitrogen atom from 4-methylbenzenesulfonyl to benzenesulfonyl (
1b), 4-nitrobenzenesulfonyl (Ns,
1c) and
t-butyloxy carbonyl (
1d) revealed that 4-nitrobenzenesulfonyl
1c proved to be the better choice, giving
3a in 53% yield. The reaction did not work when free 2-aminobenzaldehyde (
1e) was used. Subsequently, the reaction parameters, including the catalyst, solvent and base, were examined, as shown in
Table 1. Other transition metal catalysts such as [Cp*IrCl
2]
2, [(
p-cymene)RuCl
2]
2, Cp*Co(CO)I
2 and Cp*Rh(OAc)
2 were tested in the reaction of
1c with
2a (entries 1–4). The results indicated that the former three completely suppressed the reaction process, and no desired product was observed. Delightedly, the latter demonstrated a higher catalytic performance, enhancing the yield to 74% (entry 4). The yield was slightly increased when DCE was replaced with DCM, delivering product
3a in 77% yield (entry 5). Next, the effect of the solvent was further evaluated by exploiting several other solvents such as MeOH, DMF, dioxane, toluene, xylene, and CH
3CN (entries 6−11). However, none of these attempts gave positive results. The use of other bases such as NaOAc, KOAc, Cs
2CO
3 and CsF could make the reaction work, but less efficient than CsOAc (entries 12−15
vs. entry 5). Decreasing the amount of CsOAc to 1.0 equiv. resulted in a higher yield of
3a (85%, entry 16). Further reducing the amount of CsOAc is harmful for the reaction (entry 17). Without the Rh catalyst or the base, the reaction was ineffective (entries 18 and 19).