Efficient and selective Pt/C-catalyzed H-D exchange reaction of aromatic rings

An effective and applicable deuteration method for aromatic rings using Pt/C-D2O-H-2 system was established. Especially, phenol was fully deuterated even at room temperature, and other electron-rich aromatic nuclei were efficiently deuterated under mild conditions. The scope and limitations of the presence method and its application to the synthesis of deuterium-labeled biologically active compounds and deuterium-labeled building blocks for practical multi-gram scale syntheses are reported.