Oxidation of o-dioxime by (diacetoxyiodo)benzene: green and mild access to furoxans

Abstract

Furoxan has been widely used in the field of high energy density materials because of its excellent properties such as high density, high standard enthalpy of formation and high nitrogen content. However, its existing synthesis methods are still restricted by the problems of difficult substrate preparation and manual handling of hazardous reagents. Herein, we disclosed a mild oxidation strategy to efficiently obtain furoxan derivatives starting from readily available o-dioxime substrates. This reaction features high functional group tolerance and easy scale-up, and has excellent regioselectivity for specific nonsymmetric o-dioximes. This method greatly reduces the safety risk and simplifies the operation process, and means that diversified furoxan derivatives can be easily accessed, thus paving the way for the wide application of furoxan derivatives.