Oxidation of α-oxo-oximes to nitrile oxides with hypervalent iodine reagents.

Iodobenzene diacetate in MeOH containing a catalytic amount of TFA efficiently oxidizes aldoximes to nitrile oxides. The latter may be trapped in situ with olefins in a bimolecular or an intramolecular mode. The new method enables the execution of tandem oxidative dearomatization of phenols/intramolecular nitrile oxide cycloaddition sequences leading to useful synthetic intermediates.