The Gomberg-Bachmann reaction for the arylation of anilines with aryl diazotates.

Simply aqueous sodium hydroxide is sufficient to exclude ionic side reactions and to prepare 2-aminobiphenyls from aryl diazotates and anilines through a new variant of the Gomberg-Bachmann reaction (see scheme). The metal-free reaction under basic conditions allows to exploit the highly radical-stabilizing effect of the aniline's free amino function for the first time, which leads to a so far unreached regioselectivity.