[408]

I have a rather electron poor heterocycle that I am building up. The easy synthetic route will leave it phenyl-substitued. The difficult route, benzyl substituted.  Obviously benzyl is easy to remove.  But what about phenyl?  I have seen a couple hardcore dephenylations using stuff like sodium in liquid ammonia, but is there anything easier?

thanks,
408.

[408]

p-methoxysubstituted phenyl can be removed with CAN