A novel iodide-catalyzed reduction of nitroarenes and aryl ketones with H3PO2 or H3PO3: its application to the synthesis of a potential anticancer agent.

A novel iodide-catalyzed reduction method using hypophosphorous and/or phosphorus acids was developed to reduce both diaryl ketones and nitroarenes chemoselectively in the presence of chloro and bromo substituents in high yield. This efficient and practical method has been successfully applied to a large scale production of a potential anticancer agent.

Mild decarboxylative activation of malonic acid derivatives by 1,1'-carbonyldiimidazole.

Malonic acid derivatives undergo unusually mild decarboxylation when treated with N,N'-carbonyldiimidazole (CDI) at room temperature to generate the carbonyl imidazole moiety in high yield, which can be reacted further with a variety of nucleophiles in an efficient one-pot process.