Phenols and carboxylic acids are efficiently arylated with diaryliodonium salts. The reaction conditions are mild, metal free, and avoid the use of halogenated solvents, additives, and excess reagents. The products are obtained in good-to-excellent yields after short reaction times. Steric hindrance is very well tolerated, both in the nucleophile and diaryliodonium salt. The scope includes ortho- and halo-substituted products, which are difficult to obtain by metal-catalyzed protocols. Many functional groups are tolerated, including carbonyl groups, heteroatoms, and alkenes. Unsymmetric salts can be chemoselectively utilized to obtain products with hitherto unreported levels of steric congestion. The arylation has been extended to sulfonic acids, which can be converted to sulfonate esters by two different approaches. With recent advances in efficient synthetic procedures for diaryliodonium salts the reagents are now inexpensive and readily available. The iodoarene byproduct formed from the iodonium reagent can be recovered quantitatively and used to regenerate the diaryliodonium salt, which improves the atom economy.

Use of a dilute aqueous solution containing a nonionic amphiphile allows efficient Suzuki-Miyaura cross-couplings of arylboronic acids with a wide array of aryl halides and pseudohalides, including sterically hindered and lipophilic substrates, in most cases at room temperature.

Surprising equilibration: A new mechanism for the title reaction is supported by DFT calculations and experimental observations. The CI and OI intermediates are isoenergetic and equilibrate quickly. Thus, any chiral information induced in the initial complex will be destroyed. In the final CC bond‐forming step, a [2,3]‐rearrangement from the OI bonded intermediate is slightly preferred over the [1,2]‐elimination from the CI bonded isomer (see scheme).

An efficient arylation of carboxylic acids with diaryliodonium salts has been developed, giving aryl esters in high yields within short reaction times for both aromatic and aliphatic substrates. The transition-metal-free conditions are compatible with a range of functional groups, and good chemoselectivity is observed with unsymmetric diaryliodonium salts. Furthermore, steric hindrance in the ortho positions is well tolerated both in the carboxylic acid and in the diaryliodonium salt, yielding aryl esters that cannot be obtained via other esterification protocols.

The asymmetric total synthesis of nonracemic korupensamine B is reported. It includes a newly designed and highly trans-diastereoselective (>20:1 dr) route to the tetrahydroisoquinoline ring and an unprecedented atropdiastereoselective Suzuki-Miyaura coupling for construction of the fully fashioned naphthylisoquinoline framework that invokes π stacking as a possible source of stereocontrol.