ABSTRACT
In order to give a larger range of possible target fi ne chemicals, new catalytic chemistry needs to be developed to convert chemicals like 2-methoxyphenol into less oxygenated, but still functionalised aromatic compounds, i.e. the challenge of catalytic constructive deoxygenation (Scheme 1). Longer term requirements are likely to be heavily focused on cost, so while improving the economics of the catalytic processes needs to be addressed in due course, certain aspects such as the reagents used to activate C-O bonds and the processes chosen to study need to considered now. This actually leads to some interesting problems for catalysis chemists to study. Here we show the fi rst studies on this concept and report new protocols to replace one or both C-O bonds in 2-methoxyphenol with C-C bonds.
