Highly efficient, recyclable and alternative method of synthesizing phenols from phenylboronic acids using non-endangered metal: Samarium oxide

Abstract

Oxidation of phenylboronic acid to phenol is one of the important industrial processes and it is generally employed in the plastic, explosive and drug manufacturing industries. Over the past decades, numerous efficient methods have been described for the generation of phenols from phenylboronic acids in the presence of oxidant. However, these methods suffered from various limitations, including the use of expensive, toxic reagents and sophisticated protocol to synthesise the phenols. Additionally, some of these reported literatures employed endangered metals, in which mankind is facing the risk of limited supply of these elements in 20 years’ time from now. As such, a viable alternative and green method for achieving organic synthesis is highly sought after by the chemists of today. Herein, we report for the first time a facile, efficient and alternative method in the preparation of phenols from phenylboronic acids using non-endangered metal as catalyst. In all cases, all phenols were afforded in satisfactory yields (81–96%) by employing column-free method. In the recyclability study, the Sm2O3 catalyst was found to possess good catalytic performance, even after being reused for five consecutive times (96–91%). In addition, SEM result revealed that the morphology of the recycled Sm2O3 catalyst was well preserved after five successive uses, which indicate no observable changes occurred in the recovered catalysts. As a final note, the current method is anticipated to be useful for industries manufacturing chemical intermediates as it provides an alternative method of catalysis by using a non-endangered metal in organic transformations.