Iron and Phenol Co-Catalysis for Rapid Synthesis of Nitriles under Mild Conditions

A mild, scalable, high yielding, and rapid route to access diverse nitriles from aldehyde oxime esters enabled by iron(III) and phenol co-catalysis has been developed. The reaction was performed at room temperature to give nitriles in excellent yield within minutes. Mechanistic studies show that the reaction may proceed through a radical process in which benzoyl aldehyde oxime is not only a substrate, but also an ancillary ligand to support iron salt in the promotion of the transformation.