Concise Synthesis of 6-Cyanobenzo[b]furan, a Useful Building Block

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

A new three-step synthesis of 6-cyanobenzo[b]furan (6) was developed, starting from commercially available 6-hydroxybenzo[b]furan-3-one (18). Key steps in this process were the first step, which was the reductive dehydration of 18 to produce 6-hydroxybenzo[b]furan (19), and the last step, which converted the aryl triflate 20 to the aryl cyanide 6 in a palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling protocol. Overall yield for this new synthesis was 49%.