“…A review of the literature revealed various applications of tetrafluoroboric acid, including Hosomi-Sakurai allylation and Prins cyclization, 32 cycloisomerizations, 33 polycyclizations, 34 syntheses of diarylmethyl tetrafluoroborates, 35 Fischer indole synthesis, 36 Meyer-Schuster-like rearrangement, 37 ring closures of aryl C-glycosides, 38 the cross-coupling of trifluoroborates with benzhydryl alcohols, 39 and more. 40 Due to the lack of prior attempts to use the tetrafluoroboric acid-diethyl ether complex for the dehydration of alcohols, we studied the behavior of commonly available alcohols in the presence of the tetrafluoroboric acid-diethyl ether complex. The optimized reaction conditions for the dehydration of halocyclobutanols were used to synthesize 1,2-diphenylcyclobutene 9a in a 53% yield (Scheme 3).…”