First, 8.47 g of 4-bromo-2-trifluoromethylphenol, 5.34 g of potassium carbonate, 4.49 g of benzyl chloride and 100 mL of N,N-dimethylformamide were added to a reaction vial, and the reaction was stirred under the cooling of an ice bath.After 24 h, the reaction mixture was poured into ice water and extracted three times with 50 mL of ether. The organic phases were combined, washed with 10% aqueous sodium hydroxide, dried over anhydrous magnesium sulfate and concentrated under reduced pressure to obtain the crude product. The crude product was purified by silica gel column chromatography to give 9.38 g of 4-bromo-2-trifluoromethyl-1-benzyloxybenzene in 81% yield.
