Highly efficient copper catalytic system for the O-arylation of phenol with iodoarene

An efficient Cu-catalyzed O-arylation was carried out by involving phenols with iodoarenes to afford various substituted diarylether derivatives with tiny loading of Cu₂O and 1H-imidazole-4-carboxylic acid as catalytic system under mild conditions, which provided good to excellent yields with good tolerance of functional groups.