Iodide, aryl, synthesis from diazonium salts

The advantages of the synthesis of aryl halides from diazonium salts will be discussed in detail in Sec. 25.3. Aryl fluorides and iodides cannot generally be prepared by direct halogenation. Aryl chlorides and bromides can be prepared by direct halogenation, but, when a mixture of 0- and p isomers is obtained, it is difficult to isolate the pure compounds because of their similarity in boiling point. Diazonium salts ultimately go back to nitro compounds, which are usually obtainable in pure form. 

When Pschorr reported more than a century ago on the first intramolecular homolytic aromatic substitution [25], he showed that biaryls could be readily prepared by intramolecular homolytic aromatic substitution using reactive aryl radicals and arenes as radical acceptors. The aryl radicals were generated by treatment of arene-diazonium salts with copper(l) ions. Today, this reaction and related processes are referred to as Pschorr reactions. It was later found that radical biaryl synthesis could be conducted without copper salts by photochemical or thermal generation of the aryl radical from the corresponding diazonium salt [26], Moreover, the reduction of aryl diazonium salts offers another route to generate reactive aryl radicals. Hence, electrochemistry [27], titanium(lll) ions [28], Fe(II)-salts [29], tet-rathiafulvalene [30] and iodide [31] have each been used successfully for the reduction of diazonium salts to generate the corresponding aryl radicals [32]. As an example, the iodide-induced cycUzation of diazonium salt 6 to phenanthrene derivative 7 is presented in Scheme 13.3 [31]. For further information on the... 

---