Rhodium-catalyzed regiospecific C–H ortho-phenylation of benzoic acids with Cu/air as an oxidant

Abstract

The development of an efficient and practical synthetic approach for the regiospecific C–H ortho-phenylation of aromatic carboxylic acids without the use of silver or costly coupling partners is reported. The rhodium-catalyzed C–H phenylation proceeded in the presence of Cu/air as a terminal oxidant. In most cases, numerous inactivated benzoic acids could couple with low-cost NaBPh₄ to obtain good to excellent yields.