Denitrative Iodination of Nitroarenes via Light-Promoted Reduction

Aryl iodides are essential synthons in organic synthesis, whose conventional preparations often suffer from poor selectivity or necessitate multistep procedures. Herein, we present a light-driven denitrative iodination as a one-step approach that directly converts nitroarenes to iodoarenes under mild and transition-metal-free conditions. This streamlined method operates in the absence of strong Brønsted acids, ensuring broad functional group tolerance, including esters, cyano groups, halides, and heterocycles, while also offering operational simplicity and scalability.