An oven dried glass vial was charged with 5-Bromo-2-chloroanisole (1.0 mmol), N-Bocpiperazine (1.2 mmol), NaOtBu (1.4 mmol), tris(dibenzylideneacetone)-dipalladium(0) {Pd2 dba3} (0.0025 mmol, 0.5 mol %) and BINAP (0.0075 mmol), and the vial was then flushed with nitrogen and capped tightly. The mixture was heated to 80° C. overnight and then cooled to room temperature, taken up in ether, filtered and concentrated. The crude product was purified by flash column chromatography on silica gel with ethyl acetate to yield 4-(4-Chloro-3-methoxy-phenyl)-piperazine-1-carboxylic acid tert-butyl ester.
