The substitution and direct departure of the
ipso-H by OH radicals has long been considered as the
main route for the hydroxylation of aro
matic compounds in water. Detailed isotope-labelled experiments showed that part of the
ipso-H shifted to the adjacent carbon in the aro
matic ring and was retained in the final phenols (1,2-NIH shift). The results indicated that besides the common
ipso-substitution, a Wagner–Meerwein rearrangement of the carbocation intermediates also exists during the hydroxylation of aro
matic compounds in H
2O via advanced oxidation technologies. More infor
mation can be found in the Full Paper by Wanhong Ma,
Jincai Zhao et al. on
page 3568 in Issue 24, 2016 (DOI:
10.1002/asia.201601299).