The arylation of secondary acyclic amides has been achieved with diaryliodonium salts under mild and metal-free conditions. The methodology has a wide scope, allows synthesis of tertiary amides with highly congested aryl moieties and avoids the regioselectivity problems observed in reactions with (diacetoxyiodo)benzene.

A novel type of hypervalent iodine(III) reagents, vinylbenziodoxolones (VBX), has been synthesized in a one-pot reaction from 2-iodobenzoic acid. VBX is bench stable, has been thoroughly characterized and the cyclic structure is supported by X-ray analysis. The reactivity of VBX was investigated in vinylation of nitrocyclohexane, and delivered vinylated products with opposite regioselectivity compared to acyclic vinyl(aryl)iodonium salts. The reagents could become a powerful tool in vinylation reactions under both metal-free and metal-catalyzed conditions.

A mechanistic study of arylations of aliphatic alcohols and hydroxide with diaryliodonium salts, to give alkyl aryl ethers and diaryl ethers, has been performed using experimental techniques and DFT calculations. Aryne intermediates have been trapped, and additives to avoid by‐product formation originating from arynes have been found. An alcohol oxidation pathway was observed in parallel to arylation; this is suggested to proceed by an intramolecular mechanism. Product formation pathways via ligand coupling and arynes have been compared, and 4‐coordinated transition states were found to be favored in reactions with alcohols. Furthermore, a novel, direct nucleophilic substitution pathway has been identified in reactions with electron‐deficient diaryliodonium salts.

An efficient and transition-metal-free method is presented to access tertiary alkyl aryl ethers by arylation of tertiary alcohols with ortho-substituted diaryliodonium salts. The scope covers cyclic and acyclic aliphatic, benzylic, allylic, and propargylic tertiary alcohols as well as primary and secondary fluorinated alcohols. The methodology gives access to alkyl aryl ethers of previously unprecedented steric congestion. Furthermore, the versatility of the developed procedure was demonstrated by arylation of the pro-drug mestranol.