A mild one-pot deamination of aromatic amines bearing electron-withdrawing groups. Calcium hypophosphite as a dediazonation reagent in nonaqueous media

Diazotization of the title amines with nitrogen dioxide in acetonitrile at −20°C, followed by treatment with calcium hypophosphite in the presence of methanol and catalytic amounts of iron(II) sulfate at room temperature results in the reductive removal of the amino group, giving the corresponding arenes in moderate to good yield.