Herein, we report the use of nontoxic, water-miscible Polarclean as a safe dipolar aprotic solvent for the metal-catalyzed direct C2–H arylation of indoles using Pd/C as a catalyst. The developed method allows reaching excellent yields and regioselectivities, and it tolerates various substituents on both indole and diaryliodonium salt scaffolds. Polarclean is fully recoverable and reusable; it shows a very low leaching of the metal catalyst, allowing its complete recovery and reuse for at least six representative reaction runs.

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