Recent Progress in Decarboxylative Oxidative Cross‐Coupling for Biaryl Synthesis

The beginning of the 21st century has seen tremendous growth in the field of decarboxylative activation. Benzoic acid derivatives are now recognised as atom-economic alternatives to traditional cross-coupling partners, and they also benefit from being inexpensive, readily available and shelf-stable reagents. In this microreview we discuss recent developments in the coupling of benzoic acid derivatives either with an arene or with a second benzoic acid derivative, a process often termed decarboxylative oxidative cross-coupling. These procedures offer great promise for the development of highly selective and atom-economic cross-couplings.