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Electrosynthesis has received great attention among researchers in both academia and industry as an ideal technique to promote single electron reduction without the use of expensive catalysts. In this work, we report the electrochemical reduction of Katritzky salts to alkyl radicals by sacrificing the easily accessible metal anode. This catalyst and electrolyte free platform has broad applicability to single electron transfer chemistry, including fluoroalkenylation, alkynylation and thiolation. The deaminative functionalization is facilitated by the rapid molecular diffusion across microfluidic channels, demonstrating the practicality that outpaces the conventional electrochemistry setups., Electrochemical transformations use electrons and electron holes instead of chemical oxidants and reductants as reagents. Here, the authors report an electrochemical reductive deaminative cross-coupling of Katrizky salts with various radical acceptors, including examples of fluoroalkenylation, alkynylation and thiolation.

Herein we disclose a catalytic synthesis of cycloalkanols that harnesses the potential of N

In this manuscript we describe the oxidative fluorination of aryl phosphorothiolates to access Ar-SF4Cl compounds. These compounds serve as precursors for the highly coveted Ar-SF5 compounds. The use of phosphorothiolates as starting materials permits access to Ar-SF4Cl from a wide variety of available starting materials, namely boronic acids, diazonium salts, aryl iodides, thiophenols, or simple arenes. The protocol has been demonstrated for >10 examples and showed good tolerance to various functional groups. Finally, we demonstrated that AgBF4 can be used as a fluorinating agent, affording good yields of an Ar-SF5.

We leveraged the recent increase in synthetic accessibility of SF

(Hetero)arylsulfur compounds where the S atom is in the oxidation state VI represent a large percentage of the molecular functionalities present in organic chemistry. More specifically, (hetero)aryl-SVI fluorides have recently received enormous attention because of their potential as chemical biology probes, as a result of their reactivity in a simple, modular, and efficient manner. Whereas the synthesis and application of the level 1 fluorination at SVI atoms (sulfonyl and sulfonimidoyl fluorides) have been widely studied and reviewed, the synthetic strategies towards higher levels of fluorination (levels 2 to 5) are somewhat more limited. This Minireview evaluates and summarizes the progress in the synthesis of highly fluorinated aryl-SVI compounds at all levels, discussing synthetic strategies, reactivity, the advantages and disadvantages of the synthetic procedures, the proposed mechanisms, and the potential upcoming opportunities.

This work describes a strategy to utilise uranyl for direct alkynylation and olefination of amides.

Redox-active benzimidazolium sulfonamides as thiolating reagents have been developed for reductive C–S bond coupling. The IMDN-SO2R reagent provides a bench-stable cationic precursor to generate a portfolio of highly active N–S intermediates, which can be successfully applied in cross-electrophilic coupling with various organic halides. The employment of an electrophilic sulfur source solved the problem of catalyst deactivation and avoided odorous thiols, featuring practical conditions, broad substrate scope, and excellent tolerance., Redox-active benzimidazolium sulfonamides as thiolating reagents have been developed for reductive C–S bond coupling.

Compared with conventional reductive coupling, reductive coupling under electrochemical conditions without external reductants is greener, milder, and more efficient and is of increasing interest to organic chemists. In this work, we report the sacrificial anode, nickel-catalyzed electrochemical allylation reaction of aryl and alkyl halides. The reaction can be applied to a range of allylation reagents such as trifluoroalkenes, oxalates, and acetates.

(Hetero)arylsulfur compounds where the S atom is in the oxidation state VI represent a large percentage of the molecular functionalities present in organic chemistry. More specifically, (hetero)aryl-S

A photocatalyzed 1,3-boron shift of allylboronic esters is reported. The atom-switch acrobatics proceeds via cascade 1,2-boron migrations and Smiles type rearrangement to furnish a variety of terminally functionalized alkyl boronates.

Redox-active esters (RAEs) as alkyl radical precursors have demonstrated great advantages for C–C bond formation. A decarboxylative cross-coupling method is described to afford substituted alkynes from various carboxylic acids using copper catalysts CuCl and Cu(acac)2. The photoexcitation of copper acetylides with electron-rich NEt3 as a ligand provides a general strategy to generate a range of alkyl radicals from RAEs of carboxylic acids, which can be readily coupled with a variety of aromatic alkynes. The scope of this cross-coupling reaction can be further expanded to aliphatic alkynes and alkynyl silanes using a catalytic amount of preformed copper-phenylacetylide. In addition, DFT calculations revealed the favorable reaction pathway and that the bidentate acetylacetonate ligand of the copper intermediate plays an important role in inhibiting the homo-coupling of the alkyne., Redox-active esters (RAEs) as alkyl radical precursors have demonstrated great advantages for Cu-catalysed C–C bond formation.

The union of two powerful transformations, directed C–H activation and decarboxylative cross-coupling, for the enantioselective synthesis of vicinally functionalized alkyl, carbocyclic, and heterocyclic compounds is described. Starting from simple carboxylic acid building blocks, this modular sequence exploits the residual directing group to access more than 50 scaffolds that would be otherwise extremely difficult to prepare. The tactical use of these two transformations accomplishes a formal vicinal difunctionalization of carbon centers in a way that is modular and thus, amenable to rapid diversity incorporation. A simplification of routes to known preclinical drug candidates is presented along with the rapid diversification of an antimalarial compound series.

The paired electrolysis triggers multiple oxidative and reductive processes to occur simultaneously, which ensures the steady transformation of the intermediates to the desired coupling products. However, fluoroalkyl radicals have not been harnessed for metal-catalyzed cross-coupling with aryl halides under electrochemical conditions. This work describes a general strategy for rapid access to various fluoromethyl and difluoromethyl aromatics by paired electrolysis. The contradiction between anodic oxidation of fluoroalkyl sulfinates and cathodic reduction of low-valent nickel catalysts can be well addressed under mild cell conditions, allowing for direct introduction of fluorinated functionalities into aromatic systems.

Uranyl cation (UO22+) has been identified as highly oxidizing agent to abstract hydrogen atoms from C-H bonds for the formation of carbon-centered radicals. This work described a photocatalytic strategy to utilize uranyl peroxo complexes for direct alkynylation and olefination of C(sp3) aliphatics. Crystallographic analysis revealed that the in situ generated uranyl peroxide accelerated the reaction.

Redox-active esters (RAEs) as active radical precursors have been extensively studied for C-B bond formations. However, the analogous transformations of stabilized radicals from the corresponding acid precursors remain challenging owing to the strong preference towards single-electron oxidation to the stable carbocations. This work describes a general strategy for rapid access to various aliphatic and aromatic boronic esters by mild photoinduced decarboxylative borylation. Both aryl and alkyl radicals could be generated from the leaving group-assisted N-hydroxybenzimidoyl chloride esters, even α-CF3 substituted substrates could be activated for further elaboration.

The direct union of primary, secondary, and tertiary carboxylic acids with a chiral glyoxylate-derived sulfinimine provides rapid access into a variety of enantiomerically pure α-amino acids (>85 examples). Characterized by operational simplicity, this radical-based reaction enables the modular assembly of exotic α-amino acids, including both unprecedented structures and those of established industrial value. The described method performs well in high-throughput library synthesis, and has already been implemented in three distinct medicinal chemistry campaigns.

A photoredox and copper catalyzed asymmetric cyanoalkylation reaction of alkenes has been developed, which uses alkyl N-hydroxyphthalimide esters as alkylation reagents. In this radical cyanoalkylation reaction, the photoredox induced alkyl radical adds to styrene, and the generated benzylic radical couples with a chiral Box/CuII cyanide complex to achieve the enantioselective cyanation. This reaction features mild conditions, operational simplicity, broad substrate scope, high yields, and high enantioselectivities, which represents an efficient method for the asymmetric radical difunctionalization of alkenes.

Aryl alkynoate is an important intermediate and powerful synthetic tool in organic chemistry, because it contains acetylene bond which can be easily introduced of different functional groups. During the past decades, several types of reactions and coupling partners have been developed for the functionalization of aryl alkynoates. In this review, we summarize the recent advances on the reactions of aryl alkynoates, including direct cyclization, ester group migration/cyclization, aryl migration/decarboxylation, ipsocyclization/dearomatization, and other reactions in the past decade.

An efficient photoredox-catalyzed alkylation/lactonization reaction of unsaturated carboxylic acids by using alkyl N-hydroxyphthalimide esters as alkylation reagents has been developed. Varieties of redox-active esters derived from aliphatic carboxylic acids were proved viable in this method, affording alkyl substituted lactones in moderate to good yields. This redox-neutral procedure features mild conditions and operational simplicity, which provides a new strategy for the synthesis of alkyl substituted lactones.

Significance The combination of two newly emerging methods for chemical synthesis enables access to molecular space that was previously challenging or impossible to access. Thus, a C–H activation of ubiquitous carboxylic acids followed by their decarboxylative functionalization provides modular access to difunctionalized carbon frameworks with distinctly controlled stereochemistry. Application of this strategy to simplify the synthesis of medicinally important entities and to discover potent antimalarial compounds is described., The union of two powerful transformations, directed C–H activation and decarboxylative cross-coupling, for the enantioselective synthesis of vicinally functionalized alkyl, carbocyclic, and heterocyclic compounds is described. Starting from simple carboxylic acid building blocks, this modular sequence exploits the residual directing group to access more than 50 scaffolds that would be otherwise extremely difficult to prepare. The tactical use of these two transformations accomplishes a formal vicinal difunctionalization of carbon centers in a way that is modular and thus, amenable to rapid diversity incorporation. A simplification of routes to known preclinical drug candidates is presented along with the rapid diversification of an antimalarial compound series.

A thiolation initiated cascade reaction of aryl alkynoates has been developed with thiol as a coupling partner. This radical process has been demonstrated to proceed through S-H bond cleavage, thiolation of alkynoate, aryl migration, and decarboxylation. This reaction tolerates a wide scope of substrates resulting in good chemical yields, which provides an easy and practical strategy for preparation of trisubstituted vinyl sulfides.

Reductive cross-coupling of primary amines and alkyl halides goes through a radical change., The reductive cross-coupling of sp3-hybridized carbon centers represents great synthetic values and insurmountable challenges. In this work, we report a nickel-catalyzed deaminative cross-electrophile coupling reaction to construct C(sp)─C(sp3), C(sp2)─C(sp3), and C(sp3)─C(sp3) bonds. A wide range of coupling partners including aryl iodides, bromoalkynes, or alkyl bromides are stitched with alkylpyridinium salts that derived from the corresponding primary amines. The advantages of this methodology are showcased in the two-step synthesis of the key lactonic moiety of (+)-compactin and (+)-mevinolin. The one-pot procedure without isolation of alkylpyridinium tetrafluoroborate salt is also proven to be successful. This cross-coupling strategy of two electrophiles provides a highly valuable vista for the convenient installation of alkyl substituents and late functionalizations of sp3 carbons.

The union of two powerful transformations, directed C–H activation and decarboxylative cross-coupling, for the enantioselective synthesis of vicinally functionalized alkyl, carbocyclic, and heterocyclic compounds is described. Starting from simple carboxylic acid building blocks, this modular sequence exploits the residual directing group to access more than 50 scaffolds that would be otherwise extremely difficult to prepare. The tactical use of these two transformations accomplishes a formal vicinal difunctionalization of carbon centers in a way that is modular and thus amenable to rapid diversity incorporation. A simplification of routes to known preclinical drug candidates is presented along with the rapid diversification of an antimalarial compound series.

The union of two powerful transformations, directed C–H activation and decarboxylative cross-coupling, for the enantioselective synthesis of vicinally functionalized alkyl, carbocyclic, and heterocyclic compounds is described. Starting from simple carboxylic acid building blocks, this modular sequence exploits the residual directing group to access more than 50 scaffolds that would be otherwise extremely difficult to prepare. The tactical use of these two transformations accomplishes a formal vicinal difunctionalization of carbon centers in a way that is modular and thus amenable to rapid diversity incorporation. A simplification of routes to known preclinical drug candidates is presented along with the rapid diversification of an antimalarial compound series.

This work describes the first Ni-catalyzed cross-electrophile coupling of alkylpyridinium salts, derived from the corresponding amines, with aryl iodide, bromoalkyne or bromoalkyl coupling partners. C(sp)-C(sp3), C(sp2)-C(sp3) and C(sp3)-C(sp3) bond formation was achieved to afford a variety of synthetically useful arenes, alkynes and alkanes in good yields from2-33. The advantages of the methodology are showcased in the two-step synthesis of the key lactonic moiety of (+)-Compactin and (+)-Mevinolin from commercially available starting materials. A one-pot procedure without isolation of alkylpyridinium tetrafluoroborate salt was also demonstrated to be successful. This work represents a new strategy for the cross-coupling reaction of two electrophiles, and also provides a complementary and highly valuable vista for the current methodologies of alkyl arene/alkyne/alkane synthesis.

We would like to thank Enamine Ltd for providing samples of several acids. We are grateful to Dr. Dee- Hua Huang and Dr. Laura Pasternack (Scripps Research) for assistance with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and Mr. Andrew Badwal (Pfizer) for high throughput purification. We also thank Stephen Harwood (Scripps Research) for helpful advice and David Hill and Prof. Donna Blackmond (both Scripps Research) for assistance with the mechanistic studies., Historically accessed through two-electron, anionic chemistry, ketones, alcohols, and amines are of foundational importance to the practice of organic synthesis. After placing this work in proper historical context, this Article reports the development, full scope, and a mechanistic picture for a strikingly different way of forging such functional groups. Thus, carboxylic acids, once converted to redox-active esters (RAEs) can be utilized as formally nucleophilic coupling partners with other carboxylic derivatives (to produce ketones), imines (to produce benzylic amines), or aldehydes (to produce alcohols). The reactions are uniformly mild, operationally simple, and, in the case of ketone synthesis, broad in scope (including several applications to the simplification of synthetic problems and to parallel synthesis). Finally, an extensive mechanistic study of the ketone synthesis is performed to trace the elementary steps of the catalytic cycle and provide the end-user with a clear and understandable rationale for the selectivity, role of additives, and underlying driving forces involved., Financial support for this work was provided by NIH (GM- 118176), the China Scholarship Council (CSC, S.N.), the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowships (749359-EnanSET, N.M.P) within the European Union research and innovation framework programme (2014-2020), and the fulbright Scholar Program (P.K.M.).

A sunlight-initiated radical conversion of aryl alkynoates to 3-iodocoumarins has been achieved using N-iodosuccinimide as the iodine source without the use of a catalyst or additive. Experimental, X-ray analysis, and computational studies indicate that the reaction under sunlight proceeds through iodination, spirocyclization and ring expansion to form the kinetic product. The sunlight-driven reaction provides a green pathway to especially valuable 3-halocoumarins derivatives.

A cascade oxidative difunctionalization reaction of alkynoates for the construction of trisubstituted olefins has been developed. The process undergoes alkylation of a C-C triple bond, 1,4-aryl migration, and decarboxylation, which demonstrates a multistep radical cascade reaction for the difunctionalization of alkynoates and also represents a strategy of direct decarboxylation of esters.

A metal-free hydroxyalkylation-initiated radical six-membered heterocycle formation reaction of N-allylbenzamide is developed. This reaction proceeds through C(sp(3))-H bond cleavage, oxyalkylation of the double bond, and intramolecular cyclization, which provides a new route toward 4-substituted 3,4-dihydroisoquinolin-1(2H)-one derivatives.

A cascade visible-light photocatalytic difluoroalkylation and intramolecular cyclization reaction has been developed for the synthesis of difluoroalkylated oxygen heterocycles. The reaction was carried out under very mild conditions, affording fluorinated isobenzofuran-1-ones, lactone, and cyclic ethers with up to 97% chemical yields. Furthermore, several types of bromofluoroalkane precursors bearing ester, keto, amido, and phosphate groups could all work very well in this reaction, which provides an easy method for the preparation of functionalized difluoroalkylated oxygen heterocycles.

A Ni-catalyzed reductive cross-coupling reaction between two electrophiles, amides and aryl iodides, has been developed. This work is the first example using amide as an electrophile to couple with another electrophile, instead of using highly basic and pyrophoric nucleophiles. Furthermore, the Ni catalyst chemoselectively inserting the C–N bond of amide triggered the reductive cross-coupling reaction, which solves the problem that the Ni catalyst preferentially inserts the more reactive C–I bond to form a self-coupling product.

A facile catalyst-free intramolecular cyclization reaction of N-allylbenzothioamide was reported. The reactions with the substrates bearing electron-withdrawing groups afforded thiazoles as products, while thiazolines formed from the reactions with substrates containing electron-donating groups as well as aliphatic substrate. This reaction provides a new access to 2,5-disubstituted thiazoles and thiazolines directly from readily available N-allylbenzothioamide.

The title coumarins are obtained under sunlight via a cascade of radical iodination, spirocyclization, and ring expansion through ester migration affording the kinetically favoured product.

An efficient cascade trifunctioalization reaction of alkynoates with N-iodosuccinimide has been developed which proceeds through iodination, aryl migration, decarboxylation, and second iodination. This reaction represents an example of 1,1-difunctionalization of the acetylene bond and also provides a new strategy for the preparation of 1,1-diiodoalkenes.

A cascade oxidative difunctionalization reaction of alkynoates for the construction of trisubstituted olefins has been developed. The process undergoes alkylation of a C–C triple bond, 1,4-aryl migration, and decarboxylation, which demonstrates a multistep radical cascade reaction for the difunctionalization of alkynoates and also represents a strategy of direct decarboxylation of esters.

An efficient cascade trifunctioalization reaction of alkynoates with N-iodosuccinimide has been developed which proceeds through iodination, aryl migration, decarboxylation, and second iodination. This reaction represents an example of 1,1-difunctionalization of the acetylene bond and also provides a new strategy for the preparation of 1,1-diiodoalkenes.

involving a C(sp3)-H bond cleavage, oxyalkylation of the double bond, and intramolecular cyclization