Ferrocenecarboxaldehyde is an important intermediate in organic synthetic chemistry. The application of 1’-substituted ferrocenecarboxaldehyde is limited because of the difficulty of synthesis. Due to many reactive sites, 1’-iodoferrocenecarboxaldehyde was widely used in the design and synthesis of functional molecules. The traditional synthetic methods not only require four steps, but also need to use expensive metal-organic reagents. 1’-Iodoferrocenecarboxaldehyde has been prepared from ferrocene through an improved three-step procedure, which features ready availability of the starting materials and simple opera-tion.

Key words: Vilsmeier formylation, l’-iodoferrocenecarbaldehyde, ferrocene derivative