Oxidative Cleavage of C sp 3 -C sp 2 and C sp 3 -H Bonds with KO t Bu: Highly Robust and Practical Synthesis of Diaryl/(het-Ar) Ketones.

Herein, we report an efficient and practical approach for synthesizing diaryl(het) ketones from R-CO-CHR-Ar through a simultaneous oxidative cleavage of C-C and C-H bonds using KO t Bu. This method enables synthesizing a variety of unsymmetrical and symmetrical (hetero)aryl ketones in excellent yields, which are otherwise difficult to make. Besides, we synthesized natural products using this method.