Diaryliodonium Salts: Structures and Synthesis

Due to similar reactivity in comparison with aromatic organometallic reagents, diaryliodonium salts are currently in broad usage as less toxic, highly efficient, stable and mild electrophilic reagents in organic synthesis. The hypervalent iodine center of diaryliodonium salts can lead to unique reactivity, which thus is frequently presented in metal-free arylations or metal-involved elementary reactions such as oxidative addition, reduction elimination, ligand coupling and ligand exchange reaction. As such, diaryliodonium salts have experienced explosive growth by transferring aromatics to the target molecules. In contrast to the reviews on the synthetic utility or aryl transformations by using diaryliodonium salts, this review provides a summary of their structures and the synthetic strategies towards them during recent decades.