Abstract 
         A greatly improved, reliable protocol for the palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling of
            dialkyl phosphites with aryl bromides has been developed. The use of an alcoholic
            solvent was the key to high yields in the synthesis of a broad variety of arylphosphonates,
            with Pd(OAc)2 /PPh3  as the catalyst and a sterically demanding tertiary amine as the base.
         
            
Key words 
         
         
            palladium - catalysis - arylphosphonates - cross-coupling - aryl halides
          
       
    
   
      
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            Synthesis of Diethyl  p 
            -Toluenephosphonate (Representative Experimental Procedure). 
            2  (45 mg, 0.2 mmol) and PPh3  (157 mg, 0.6 mmol). The reaction vessel was evacuated and purged with argon. Subsequently,
            EtOH (40 mL), p -bromotoluene (1.71 g, 10 mmol), dicyclohexylmethylamine (2.93 g, 15 mmol) and diethyl
            phosphite (1.55 mL, 12 mmol) were added via syringe. The reaction mixture was stirred
            at reflux for 16 h, and the resulting yellow solution was diluted with EtOAc (300
            mL) and washed with 1 N HCl, sat. aq NaHCO3  and brine. The organic layer was dried over MgSO4 , filtered, the volatiles were removed in vacuo and the residue was purified by column
            chromatography (SiO2 , hexanes-EtOAc, 1:3), yielding 2.06 g (90%) of 3e  as a colorless oil. The reactions in Table 
            [2 2 , hexanes-EtOAc) and characterized by means of 1 H NMR and 13 C NMR, GC-MS and HRMS.