Iodination of industrially important aromatic compounds with aqueous potassium triiodide

A new reagent system consisting of aqueous KI 3 in AcOH and NaIO 4 as oxidant has been found to be effective in iodinating a variety of commercially important aromatic substrates under ambient conditions. The presence of Na 2 SO 3 enhances the yield and the product purity. The procedure ensures high yields (72–98%) at room temperature in a short reaction time. A remarkable feature of this system is that even acidsensitive functionalities like anilines can be iodinated quantitatively.