Daugulis' New Way to Make 2-Arylphenols Published in Chemical Science

Research resulting in a new way to make 2-arylphenols published online in the journal, Chemical Science, on October 18. Olafs Daugulis, associate professor of chemistry at University of Houston, and Thanh Truong, a graduate student working with Daugulis, are authors of the journal article. The editors of Chemical Science featured the paper as a "hot" article in the journal’s blog and on its homepage.

2-arylphenols are found in sensors, biologically active substances, organocatalysts, and phosphite ligands. Simple and cheap aryl chlorides can be used to directly arylate unprotected phenols without transition metals.

This is the first general, regioselective intermolecular phenol ortho-arylation process that uses aryl chlorides as one of the coupling components. It is the most direct synthetic pathway to 2-arylphenols – no protecting group manipulations are required.

The team also made arylated binaphthol derivatives. Additionally, they have presented the shortest pathway to date for the synthesis of helicenes – one step from commercially available reagents.
The research was supported by the Welch Foundation (grant no. E-1571), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (grant no.R01GM077635), and Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.

Reference:
T Truong and O Daugulis, Chem. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/c2sc21288a