Decarboxylative Etherification of Aromatic Carboxylic Acids

Decarboxylative Chan–Evans–Lam-type couplings are presented as a new strategy for the regiospecific construction of diaryl and alkyl aryl ethers starting from easily available aromatic carboxylic acids. They allow converting various aromatic carboxylate salts into the corresponding aryl ethers by reaction with alkyl orthosilicates or aryl borates, under aerobic conditions in the presence of silver carbonate as the decarboxylation catalyst and copper acetate as the cross-coupling catalyst.