Recent Advances in the Catalytic Dearomatization of Naphthols

The catalytic dearomatization of naphthols offers a unique platform to rapidly access structurally complex and densely functionalized molecular architectures. Thermodynamically more favorable, with respect to the analogous phenol-variant, the transformation of the phenolic ring into the corresponding naphthalenone (cited here as naphthyl dearomatization) has faced a considerable amount of attention over the past decade with constant improvements towards stereocontrol. A collection of the most representative and recent catalytic variants involving carbon-carbon as well as carbon-heteroatom bond forming events are presented in thisMinireviewarticle.