Aromatic nitrile compounds are not only important components of dyes, industrial and agricultural chemicals, and drug molecules, but also significant intermediates in organic synthesis chemistry. This is due to the fact that the cyano group can be easily converted into other organic functional groups, making the development of new reagents and methods for synthesizing aromatic nitriles of great importance. This paper summarizes and reviews the main literature on the synthesis of aryl nitriles published from 1884 to 2025, and partially in 2026, organized and categorized from the perspective of cyano sources. Initially, chemists used highly toxic NaCN and KCN as cyanide sources; later, methods using potassium ferrocyanide and potassium ferricyanide as non-toxic cyanide sources were developed; in recent years, methods using non-metal cyanides (such as iodine cyanide, etc.) and cyanide-free compounds (such as formamide, etc.) as cyanide sources have also emerged. This paper categorizes relevant major literature according to different cyanide sources, and provides the reaction characteristics and scope of application for each cyanide source reagent. Another approach of this review summarizes related literature according to the order of C-H, C-B, C-C, C-N, C-X, C-O, C-S, and C-Si bond transformations into C-CN bonds under the same cyanide source conditions. Notably, this paper also briefly summarizes nearly all 23 literature on the latest progress in the synthesis of aromatic nitriles published during 2023-2025. In addition, the review briefly describes the mechanisms of certain reactions.

Key words: Arylnitrile, Metal cyanide source, Non-metallic cyanide source