[摘要]：Easily available and nontoxic FeCl3 catalyzes intramol. oxidative coupling for the direct construction of the phenanthrene ring using m-chloroperbenzoic acid as sole oxidant at room temp. in excellent yields. The mechanistic investigations show that FeCl3-catalyzed coupling proceeds through heterolytic coupling (A+ + B). The catalytic approach has been applied to intermol. biaryl coupling of 2-naphthols and phenol ether.
