N-Iodosuccinimide (NIS) as a mild and highly chemoselective catalyst for deprotection of tert-butyldimethylsilyl ethers

A variety of alcoholic TBDMS (t-butyldimethylsilyl) ethers are easily removed in excellent yields by treatment with a catalytic amount of N-iodosuccinimide (NIS, 5 mol %) in methanol. This method is able to deprotect TBDMS ethers of alcohols in the presence of TBDMS ethers of phenols.