Iron-catalyzed conversion of unactivated aryl halides to phenols in water

Although iron is low-cost and environmentally friendly, there is no report about iron-catalyzed conversion of unactivated aryl halides to phenols. In this Letter, a new method for the present conversion was developed with iron compounds as the catalyst and water as the solvent. The suggested method allowed a series of unactivated aryl bromides and aryl iodides to be converted into the corresponding substituted phenols in moderate to high yields.