An efficient and chemoselective deprotection of tert-butyldimethylsilyl (TBDMS) ethers using tailor-made ionic liquid

Phenolic tert-butyldimethylsilyl (TBDMS) ethers can be deprotected to yield phenols in excellent yield using tailor-made ionic liquid [dihexaEGim][OMs] (dihexaEGim = dihexaethylene glycolic imidazolium salt) as an organic catalyst with alkali-metal fluoride in tert-amyl alcohol. On the contrary, all TBDMS protecting groups can be cleaved cleanly from the bis-TBDMS ether using the same reaction in CH3CN solvent instead of tert-alcohol at 100 °C. This [dihexaEGim][OMs]/tert-amyl alcohol media system allows the highly selective phenolic deprotection reaction of various bis-TBDMS ethers containing both phenolic and aliphatic TBDMS ethers to provide the corresponding phenols in high yield.