The Elbs & Boyland-Sims Oxidations: Reactions of Peroxydisulfate-An Updated Literature Survey

Karl Elbs published his discovery of the reaction between phenols and peroxydisulfate in 1893. It was not until fifty years later that Boyland extended the reaction to aromatic amines. There have been more than 300 citations of these reactions which, although usually giving only modest yields, are nevertheless useful for their simplicity.