A Facile Demethylation of Ortho Substituted Aryl Methyl Ethers Promoted by AlCl 3

An efficient and practical demethylation of ortho substituted aryl methyl ethers using AlCl 3 has been developed. This method gives a high conversion, is simple to operate and is cost-effective. A mechanism involving the complexation of AlCl 3 with the OMe and the adjacent electron withdrawing group is proposed. Many functional groups can be tolerated in the demethylation process, and 29 examples gave a demethylated product in a yield of 90–98%.