Hypervalent iodine
compounds formally feature expanded valence
shells at iodine. These reagents are broadly used in synthetic chemistry
due to the ability to participate in well-defined oxidation–reduction
processes and because the ligand-exchange chemistry intrinsic to the
hypervalent center allows hypervalent iodine compounds to be applied
to a broad array of oxidative substrate functionalization reactions.
We recently developed methods to generate these compounds from O2 that are predicated on diverting reactive intermediates of
aldehyde autoxidation toward the oxidation of aryl iodides. Coupling
the aerobic oxidation of aryl iodides with catalysts that effect C–H
bond oxidation would provide a strategy to achieve aerobic C–H
oxidation chemistry. In this Forum Article, we discuss the aspects
of hypervalent iodine chemistry and bonding that render this class
of reagents attractive lynchpins for aerobic oxidation chemistry.
We then discuss the oxidation processes relevant to the aerobic preparation
of 2-(tert-butylsulfonyl)iodosylbenzene, which is
a popular hypervalent iodine reagent for use with porous metal–organic
framework (MOF)-based catalysts because it displays significantly
enhanced solubility as compared with unsubstituted iodosylbenzene.
We demonstrate that popular synthetic methods to this reagent often
provide material that displays unpredictable disproportionation behavior
due to the presence of trace impurities. We provide a revised synthetic
route that avoids impurities common in the reported methods and provides
access to material that displays predictable stability. Finally, we
describe the coordination chemistry of hypervalent iodine compounds
with metal clusters relevant to MOF chemistry and discuss the potential
implications of this coordination chemistry to catalysis in MOF scaffolds.