High-yielding cleavage of (Aryloxy)acetates

A reliable and high-yielding one-pot sequence for the removal of O-carboxymethyl moieties from phenols is presented. When diethylphosphoryl. azide is employed as the azide transfer reagent in the Curtius rearrangement and glycerol in the subsequent hydrolytic workup, the protocol can be reliably applied to a very broad scope of substrates. ((c) Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2008).