A Biomimetic Catalytic Aerobic Functionalization of Phenols

摘要

The importance of aromatic C—O, C-N, and CS bonds necessitates increasingly efficient strategies for their formation. Herein, we report a biomimetic approach that converts phenolic C—H bonds into C—O, C-N, and CS bonds at the sole expense of reducing dioxygen (O2) to water (H2O). Our method hinges on a regio- and chemoselective copper-catalyzed aerobic oxygenation to provide ortho-quinones. ortho-Quinones are versatile intermediates, whose direct catalytic aerobic synthesis from phenols enables a mild and efficient means of synthesizing poly functional aromatic rings.