2021, Li, Yang, Zhang, Cai-Lin, Huang, Wei-Heng, Sun, Ning, Hao, Meng, Neumann, Helfried, Beller, Matthias

β-Lactam compounds play a key role in medicinal chemistry, specifically as the most important class of antibiotics. Here, we report a novel one-step approach for the synthesis of α-(trifluoromethyl)-β-lactams and related products from fluorinated olefins, anilines and CO. Utilization of an advanced palladium catalyst system with the Ruphos ligand allows for selective cycloaminocarbonylations to give diverse fluorinated β-lactams in high yields. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2021.