Our study commenced with the reaction between 1-(2, 6-dibromophenyl)-1
H-pyrrole (
1a) and 2-(trimethylsilyl)phenyl trifluoromethanesulfonate (
2a) as the benzyne precursor in the prescence of Pd(OAc)
2 (10mol%), dppm (10mol%), CsF (4.0 equiv.) and Na
2CO
3 (1.0 equiv.) in CH
3CN at 100 ℃ for 24h in a nitrogen atmosphere. The targeted double annulated product
3a was obtained in a low yield of 24% (
Table 1, entry 1), and no singly annulated byproduct was detected. The structure of
3a was identified by
1H,
13C NMR and HRMS analyses. Catalyst screening showed that only palladium catalysts worked. Both Pd(PPh
3)
4 and Pd(PhCN)
2Cl
2 improved the yield to around 45% (
Table 1, entries 2 and 3). For easy handling, Pd(PhCN)
2Cl
2 was chosen as the catalyst. The reaction did not occur in toluene, but performed much better in THF, giving
3a in 70% yield (
Table 1, entries 4–7). Bidentrate phosphine ligands, bis(diphenylphosphino)methane (dppm) and 1, 2-bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane (dppe) gave similar yields, while 1, 3-bis(diphenylphosphino)propane (dppp) was less effective. Monophosphine ligand, triphenylphosphine (PPh
3) was also inferior (
Table 1, entries 7–10). Lowering and elevating the reaction temperature both significantly decreased the yield of
3a (
Table 1, entries 11 and 12). Although addition of extra base sodium carbonate showed no influence, further increase of the basicity could promote the reaction, and the best yield of 81% was achieved when Cs
2CO
3 was employed as the base (
Table 1, entries 13–15). It needs to point out that triphenylene was observed as a byproduct in this reaction.