N-Iodosuccinimide (NIS) in Direct Aromatic Iodination

N-Iodosuccinimide (NIS) in pure trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) offers a time-efficient and general method for the iodination of a wide range of mono-and disubstituted benzenes at room temperature, as demonstrated in this paper. The starting materials were generally converted into mono-iodinated products in less than 16 hours at room temperature, without byproducts. A few deactivated substrates needed addition of sulfuric acid to increase the reaction rate. Another exception was methoxybenzenes that preferentially were iodinated by NIS in acetonitrile with only catalytic amounts of TFA.