A mild, highly selective and remarkably easy procedure for deprotection of aromatic acetates using ammonium acetate as a neutral catalyst in aqueous medium

Ammonium acetate was found to catalyze efficiently the selective deprotection of aromatic acetates in the presence of various sensitive functionalities in aqueous methanol under neutral conditions at room temperature to yield the corresponding phenols in excellent yields. The method has been utilized for deprotection of acetates of several naturally occurring bioactive phenolic compounds and for preparation of venkatasin, a natural coumarino-lignan, from the anticancer compound cleomiscosin A.