An oven dried round bottom flask was charged with 4-hydroxy-4′-cyanobiphenyl (1 eqvl), PPh3 (1.2 eqv) and -if solid -the alcohol (1 eqv). The flask was cooled to 0 °C with an ice bath under an internal atmosphere of dry nitrogen and the solids dissolved into anhydrous THF (20 ml). The reaction solution was cooled to 0 °C and DIAD (1.2 eqv) and added. The reaction was then monitored by TLC until complete consumption of the phenol and alcohol (typically < 4h). Celite (1 g per mmol of alcohol) was added, the suspension was then stirred for 5 minutes, and the solvent was removed in vacuo. The celite-loaded crude reaction mixture was purified by flash chromatography with a gradient of hexanes/DCM. The chromatographed material was redisolved into DCM and passed through a 0.2 μm syringe filter before removing the solvent in vacuo and recrystallizing from ethanol/THF mixtures.