The use of FeCl(3) resulted in a fast homocoupling of aryllithiums, and this enabled its integration with the halogen-lithium exchange reaction of aryl halides in a flow microreactor. This system allows the homocoupling of two aryl halides bearing electrophilic functional groups, such as CN and NO(2), in under a minute.
Keywords: homocoupling; iron salts; microreactor; organolithiums.