Redetermination of the Structure of a Water-Soluble Hypervalent Iodine(V) Reagent AIBX and Its Synthetic Utility in the Oxidation of Alcohols and Synthesis of Isoxazoline N‑Oxides

The structure of a water-soluble hypervalent iodine­(V) reagent AIBX is re-examined through its single-crystal X-ray analysis and theoretical calculations including Mayer bond order and localized orbital locator (LOL) and AIBX is believed to be a pseudocyclic iodylarene because of the strong electron-withdrawing nature of the trimethylammonium cation on its phenyl ring, which would decrease the electron density of carboxylic anion and make the ortho-carboxyl oxygen anion incapable to form hypervalent bond with iodine atom. However, the cyclic benziodoxole structure of AIBX could be obtained by adding a Brønsted acid, which was supported by the calculation result including the increase of Mayer bond order and the shortening of the I–O bond length. Moreover, the fact that the system of AIBX and TFA could oxidize various alcohols to their corresponding carbonyl compounds would indicate that AIBX constitutes a cyclic benziodoxole structure under acidic conditions. In addition, an efficient method has been developed for the synthesis of isoxazoline N-oxides via AIBX-induced dehydrogenative cyclization using β-keto esters as substrates and methyl nitroacetate as a nucleophile.